Bulletin of the University of Georgia — 


Walter Barnard Hill 


~ EG, Mie 


Memorial Number 
May, 1906 


a Fsaued Monthly by the University 


—~IIGEI EG 


Entered at the Post Offire at Shen, Ga., as second-rlass matter, August 30, 1905, wider 
Act nf Gongress of Duly 16, 1894. 


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BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY 
OF GEORGIA 


MEMORIAL NUMBER, MAY 1906. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL, 


CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY. 


Issued by Order of the Board of Trustees Under the Direction of the Following 
Committee of the Board: 
N. E. HARRIS, S. B. ADAMS, 
DUDLEY M. HUGHES, E. H. CALLAWAY, 
! CLARK HOWELL. 


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CONTENTS. 


Frontispiece: Walter Barnard Hill, Chancellor of the University. 


Introduction. 


Addresses at the Memorial Exercises held in the University 


Chapel: 


Sketch of Chancellor Hill: Hon. Nathaniel E. Harris, Chairman 


Dr: 


ir 


CVE AE AEC: OTTTTIA CEC alee Rr REN MiNi ER Mb Agi aN ey hk yl Mone AL AR 


. Hill’s Relation to the University: Prof. David C. Barrow... 
. Hill’s Relation to the University: Prof. Willis H. Bocock ... 
. Hill’s Relation to the Board of Trustees: Hon. Enoch H. 


aa way ier wat coun, i ; 


. Hill’s oN to Ne evi Hon. Tose M. Terrell, Gov- 


Stnor: On) Geqnaetann une iar. 


Hill’s Relation to the Bench Bie Ba Hon. eee I. icon: 


Associate Justice Supreme Court .. 


. Hill’s Relation to the Beye Ghileveeee Dr. Charles 
Beer onuth) President ot! Mercer: University) 10 volo iin 


. Hill’s Relation to the Denominational Colleges: Dr. ne Ey, 


Dickey, President of Emory College ......... 
Hill’s Relation to the Church: Rev. Isaac S. Hephine D. D. 


Letter from Mr. George Foster Peabody, of New York, read by 


the Chairman FonwiN} He TArrisi en ion cede LAN tabby Rima 


Fersonal and Press Tributes: 


Dr. 


Albert Shaw, Editor Review of Reviews ... ... ... 22. ee 


Editorial in The Outlook . 


Hon. John Temple Cy Editor Nee News A eee M LOA 
Hon Clarie Howell) Editor: Atlanta Constitution) 3/0048 Pa nud. 


Mrs. W. H. Felton, in Atlanta Journal ..... 
Beitociallinem ue usta CH rontelay tit 


Bditoryal in Macon News wiles Ge. ele aveeeiy opy ee ee 
T. W. Reed, in Athens Banner ... ... Pu ECA obs 
Dr. W. C. Lovett, Editor Wesleyan Cintas ee ah cette) 
HaditorialinAtlantai Jourtmal wy ee ene ata iat eee 


ig: es 
. 69 


70 


MA: 


Dr A) J. Battle,.in: Atlanta ‘Constitution (out) ok eee 
Hony)) Ps :A. Stovall) Editor Savannah Press’ wh.) 64)... 2 
Prof. J. S. Stewart, in Atlanta Journal .. mrs’ f! 
Hiditorial in ‘Che! Georgian iy oe re ce rr 
Editorialin' The Red andiBlack) Wi) 0) eee Bee Bethy 
Services at the Synagogue in Athens ... ... As 
Exercises at Colored College in Savannah . VAR BPA 
Dr. Edwin A. Alderman, President Uiveraee of Virginia in ete SI 
MriRoM Girardeau, at Bimory College 2.0!) 7.20414 ens 
Words of Appreciation in’ Letters to Mrs: Hill 22). 0. Cee 
Resolutions of New WOrk (ALUMI isis Wale. es ww elt cele s Celene a’ bie tence 90 
Resolutions of the Southern Mutual Insurance Company ..... 91 
Waiversity. Plans) for the Future... 2 od es 


INTRODUCTION. 


The death of Chancellor Hill was a profound shock to the people 
oi Georgia and to all who knew and loved him throughout the entire 
country, coming as it did at a time when he had become indispensable 
to the University in its many plans for future development. 

Mr. Hill contracted a severe cold on returning from a meeting of 
the Board of Trustees of the State School for Colored Youths in Savan- 
nah, December 13, 1905. His cold not yielding to simple remedies, 
a physician was called. Pneumonia developed and after an heroic 
struggle of ten days he was “called home” on the morning of December 
28th. } 

_ The announcement of his illness and death touched the heart of 
the state and nation as has that, perhaps, of no other Georgian since 
the similarly sudden death of Henry W. Grady. 


Hon. John T. Graves in an editorial in the Atlanta News of De- 
cember 27th thus voiced the feelings of the people: 

“The friends of education in Georgia and the South are watching 
today with deep and tender solicitude around the bed upon which 
Walter B. Hill, chancellor of our State University, lies mortally ill. 
There is not in the ranks of noble figures whose brains and hearts 
are consecrated to the great cause of Southern Education, a nobler and 
a more useful figure than that of Chancellor Hill. 

“With a pure heart, a crystal mind and a signal patriotism, he 
came out of the walks of professional life some years ago to give his 
time, his talents, and his character to the service of his state in the 
development of its immortal youth. 

“Neither senators nor governors; neither congressmen nor state 
officials mean so much to Georgia as the gentle gentleman lying ill at 
Athens today. He carries upon the shoulders of his solemn, sweet 
responsibility more of vital meaning to the real and vital interests of 


6 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


the state than all the public officials and dignitaries who clamor for 
recognition in this generation of our people. 


“Speaking for the people of Georgia in their highest and, yet in 
an almost selfish stretch of sympathy, we send to Athens today the 
assurance of our deep and tender consideration, and we send to a 
higher source from which we ask the loftiest favors, the invocation 
that the beloved and brilliant chancellor of our university may be 
spared for other and longer years of service to the young men upon 
whom our future and our honor rest.” 

The funeral services were held on December 29th at 4:00 p. m., in 
the University Chapel. The service was read by Rev. F. F. Reese, of 
Nashville, assisted by Rev. I. 5. Hopkins, of Athens. Amid a pro- 
fusion of flowers, sent by friends, far and near, his body was laid to 
rest in Oconee Cemetery, near the scene of his labors, in the presence 
of his sorrowing neighbors and prominent citizens of the state. 


At a meeting of the Board of Trustees in January a committee 
consisting of Hon. N. E. Harris, Judge S$. B. Adams, Hon. Dudley M. 
Hughes, Judge E. H. Callaway, and Hon. Clark Howell, was ap- 
pointed to arrange a memorial service in honor of Mr. Hill and to 
prepare a sketch of his life and work. 


Tuesday, April toth, was designated by the committee for the 
exercises. The students of the University were at home for the 
Christmas holidays when Mr. Hill died. In the morning of the 
Memorial Day, immediately after chapel exercises, they marched by 
classes in silent ranks to the simple grave of their dead friend and 
placed flowers upon his grave in token of their love and esteem. 


In the afternoon, the University Chapel was crowded to its full 
capacity by appreciative friends and the affection of loyal hearts was 
lovingly expressed by a distinguished company of Georgia’s leading 
citizens. 

On the stage were seated the faculty, representatives from the 
faculties of other institutions, the Board of Trustees and many prom- 
inent visitors. The stage was beautifully decorated. Among the dis- 
tinguished visitors was Dr. Wallace Buttrick, of New York, who 
came to express by his presence the esteem in which Chancellor Hill 
was held by the leading educators of the North. He spoke tenderly of 
his own love for Mr. Hill. It is to be regretted that no stenograph- 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 7 


er was present to record the beautiful tribute by Dr. Buttrick on “Dr. 
Hill—The Man.” ie 

This volume was authorized by the Board of Trustees and is 
issued under the direction of the committee of the Board to perpetuate 
the loving tributes of friends of our great chancellor. 


>] 
Ss i J 
—~ Lasgo - 


MEMORIAL SKETCH 


BY 
HON. N. E. HARRIS, FOR THE COMMITTEE. 


Walter Barnard Hill, A. M., LL.D., was born in Talbotton, Ga., 
September 5, 1851; he died at Athens, Ga., on December 28, 1905, 
in the fifty-fifth year of his age. 

, His father was Judge Barnard Hill, a distinguished jurist and 
lawyer, who was a native of Harvard, Mass., where he was born on 
the 21st of March, 1804, and who came to Georgia in 1822, and 
after residing a while at Talbotton finally settled at Macon. 

Judge Hill was twice married. By his first wife, who was Miss 
Sarah Ann Brown, he had two children, one of whom, John R. 
Hill, studied law and practiced with his father for a while. He is now 

dead. 

: The other child, Mrs. A. H. Lester, of Poulan, Ga., is yet living. 
His second wife was Miss Mary Clay Birch, daughter of a southern 
mechanic and contractor, of English descent and related to the family 
of the great Henry Clay, of Kentucky. Judge Hill was married 
to the last wife on the 24th of November, 1844, in Talbotton, Ga. 
Two children were born of this marriage—Walter and Herbert. The 
latter still survives, residing at Monticello, where he is engaged in 
the insurance business. 

So it may be said of the Chancellor’s blood that it was strictly 
puritan and cavalier—Massachusetts and Georgia. 

As soon as young Walter was able to leave his home his father © 
sent him to Talbotton, Ga., to enter the Collinsworth Institute, at 
that place. Here he received his earliest training under the tutorship 
of Rev. John T. McLaughlin. 

The young man was very precocious, developing far ahead of 
his age, so that he was able to enter the Sophomore Class half ad- 
vanced in the University at the spring term of 1868, when only sixteen 
vears of age. | 

Although his class was largely made up of men of mature 


10 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


minds, who had been kept back by the vicissitudes of the war, and 
had come to college at a much more advanced age than is usual, yet 
the young boy of sixteen forged immediately to the front of the class, 
which position he held to the end, graduating with the third honor, 
in 1870. 

He remained for a year at the University after his graduation, 
taking the A. M. course and likewise completing the course in law. 

From the law school he received the degree of B. L. in 1871, and 
at the same time obtained the degree of A. M. in the post graduate 
course of the University. 

His diploma as a graduate of the law school entitled him to 
practice law in the courts of Georgia and he immediately entered 
into partnership with his father in the city of Macon, where he did 
his first work at the bar. 

After Judge Hill was promoted to the bench, in 1873, Mr. Hill 
formed a partnership with his class-mate and friend, N. E. Harris, 
Esquire, which partnership lasted until his election to the chancellor- 
ship, on July 13, 1899. 

Some of the famous men who were in college with Mr. Hill 
may be mentioned with propriety. There were in the classes ahead of 
him: Henry W. Grady, Hon. Albert H. Cox, Hon. Peter W. Mel- 
drim, Judge S. F. Wilson, Judge W. R. Hammond, Judge Emory 
Speer, Judge A. Pratt Adams, Judge Howard Van Epps, Hon. J. W. 
Walters, Hon. Benj. H. Hill, Jr.. Hon. B. M. Davis, and in his class 
were: Hon. Charles L. Bartlett, Judge Walter C. Beeks, Hon. Wash- 
ington Dessau, Hon. Dudley M. Hughes, Judge Henry C. Roney, 
Hon. W. A. Broughton, Gen. EF. D. Huguenin, Rev. J. D. Hammond, 
Hon. A. H. Hodgson, Rev. I. W. Waddell, Col. Marion Verdery, 
President George Summey, President G. R. Glenn, Hon. D. B. Fitz- 
gerald, Hon. N. FE. Harris and others. 

There was not a person in college with Mr. Hill, who did not realize 
at the time that he was a young man of unusual mental capacity and 
destined to achieve success in any line of work to which he might devote 
his energies. 


LEGAL ACHIEVEMENTS. 


A short time after his admission to the bar, Mr. Hill undertook 
to revise the Code of Georgia, rendered necessary by the results of 
the war, and the laws passed under the Constitutions, since 1863. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL If 


This Revised Code was published in sa and was known as 
Erwin, Lester and Hill’s Code. 


Mr. Hill did the work of annotating this code, using for the 
purpose authorities derived from the Supreme Court decisions of 
the state, as well as from the text writers and reports of other 
states. 


The work required extensive research, careful analysis, and 
undoubted legal judgment. The result was in fact one of the best 
and most complete specimens of code annotation to be found in the 
history of our code expansion. 


He revised the Code again in 1882 and brought it up to date. 

While Mr. Hill never held any political office, yet he served 
with distinction in many relations open to the profession. 

He was elected city attorney for the corporation of Macon in 
1876 and held this office in connection with his firm continuously 
until the latter part of the year 1882. 


During a portion of this time he was in partnership with Lanier 
& Anderson, father and uncle respectively, of Sidney Lanier, the 
association being a partnership in which the two firms of Lanier & 
Anderson and Hill & Harris were combined. 


Afterwards Mr. Hill became, in connection with his firm, general 
counsel of the Covington & Macon railroad, also of the Empire & Dub- 
lin and the Middle Georgia & Atlantic railroad companies. 

For a number of years he was division counsel of the Central rail- 
-1oad and assistant division counsel of the Southern railroad. 


He likewise represented the old East Tennessee railroad in the 
same capacity, following Messrs. Bacon & Rutherford in that position. 

At the time he was elected Chancellor, his firm was well known 
throughout a considerable portion of the state and was engaged in 
a very large and extensive business. — 

He was president of the Bar Association in 1887 and always 
took a leading part in the work. 

At one time his name was presented to the governor of the state 
for judge of the Macon circuit, and was earnestly urged by a large 
delegation of the Macon bar. He had agreed to accept the position 
and the governor was ready to appoint, when some unexpected oppo- 
sition developed and he did not receive the place. If he had gone 
upon the bench his life doubtless would have been entirely changed. 


12 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


He was admitted to practice in the courts of the United States 
and in the Supreme Court at Washington. In the latter court he 
appeared several times on important cases and with almost uniform 
success. 

When the Supreme Court of the United States celebrated its 
centennial, in 1890, he received the distinguished honor of being 
placed upon the programme to deliver an address upon the subject 
of the “Common Law.” ‘This duty he discharged with eminent satis- 
faction. 

He much preferred the practice in the United States courts, where 
questions were largely determined by the judge rather than in the state 
courts. 

He was profoundly interested in the literature of the profession, 
constantly studying law as a science and delighting to explore its 
growth and the steady development of its administration. 

While he was not a teacher by profession, he was not altogether 
without experience in this calling, for he had occupied the position 
of Professor of Law in Mercer University for five years, and had just 
been re-elected to that place at the time when he became Chancellor 
of the University. He filled this position in the Mercer Law School, 
it is said, with marked ability and success. 

A member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, he was 
Prominent in its circles, having been sent as a delegate several times 
to the Annual Conferences and twice to the General Conference of 
that Church. He was also for many years Chairman of the Board 
of Trustees of the South Georgia Orphans’ Home, located at Macon, 
and likewise occupied the position of Chairman of the Board of 
Stewards of Mulberry Street Church for a long series of vears. He 
filled a term as trustee of Vanderbilt University at Nashville and 
was elected trustee of Emory College, but did not take his seat. 

His greatest distinction in Georgia, however, grew out of his 
connection with the temperance movement. For many years he was 
regarded as the central figure in this movement and devoted to it 
some of the best years of his life, spending his money and us:ng his 
pen and voice in aid or advocacy of its principles. In fact, it may with 
truth be said of him that he did more to make Georgia a prohibition 
state than any other one man ever connected with the cause. 

While his course as a prohibitionist subjected him at times to 
criticism, yet so well recognized was his integrity and so wide-spread 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 13 


his reputation for honesty of purpose and devotion to truth, that no 
one of his bitterest enemies ever impugned his motives or questioned 
the sincerity and honesty of his convictions. 

One of the bar-keepers whose business he had been assailing 
said of him once, “That fellow Hill is a very clever man and I would 
have no fault to find with him, if he would only just let whiskey 
alone.” 

During all these days of work at his profession and in his 
favorite cause of temperance he found time to write largely for 
magazines and literary papers throughout the Union. 

Some of these publications attracted wide-spread attention, 
among which may be mentioned his articles on “ Wit and Humor,” 
published in the Methodist Review and other periodicals, and his 
“Uncle Tom Without a Cabin,” in which our great Southern problem 
was discussed. 

His convictions touching the relations of the races were strong 
and decided and his presentation and discussion of subjects bearing 
upon these matters made a profound impression upon the minds of 
the people both North and South. | 

His diction was smooth and elegant and his thoughts were ready 
and striking at all times. 

His speeches and lectures, delivered either in the court house or 
elsewhere on current matters, were always models of eloquence and 
rhetoric. He was never known to make a failure either in a speech 
or an essay. 

On the Wisconsin trip, which the trustees made last year 
through the kindness of Mr. Peabody and Mr. Spencer, while Mr. 
Hill was speaking in the great auditorium at Madison, one of the 
professors on the stage remarked: “Mr. Hill must be a Northern 
man; no Southern man ever used such beautiful language.” 

In all his public utterances there was ever an undercurrent of 
wit, and yet from his ordinary conversation no one would have sus- 
pected the decided vein of humor and anecdote which he, in fact, pos- 
sessed. 

Not only did his writings exhibit this phase, but in the court 
house, in his management of:cases, his droll sayings, puns and 
sharp wit often did him great service either in the discomfiture of an 
adversary or in commanding the good graces of a jury. 

He has been known to laugh an adversary out of court. 


i4 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Chief Justice Simmons, of the Supreme Court, once declared’ 
that Mr. Hill “was the best brief maker he had ever known at the 
bar of Georgia,” and he added that “his experience ran over a pretty 
broad field.” 

He used of him the following remarkable language: 

“When Mr. Hill first starts out, if he annunciates as a proposi. 
tion that 2 and 2 make 4, I am obliged to say to myself ‘that is an. 
infernal lie,’ or I am lost. He builds his argument so logically and 
handles his authorities so effectively, that he carries me completely 
away and unless I differ with him on the axioms he employs I cannot 
escape his conclusions.” 

He did not fancy the fierce contest of the court house, but never- 
theless he was always ready when his case was called. 

Judge Simmons, referred to above, who presided over the Superior 
Courts of the Macon Circuit for many years before going upon the 
Supreme bench, used to remark, that there were two lawyers at his bar 
always ready; one was Walter Hill, who was ready because he had his 
case prepared, the other was—(naming a certain lawyer)—-who was 
ready, because he never knew whether his case was prepared or not. 


HIS WORK IN THE UNIVERSITY. 


The selection of Chancellor Hill proved to be the happiest event 
which happened in the history of the University for many long years. 

It has been said that he reconciled the foes of the institution and 
re-united its friends. 

It is certain that he carried both the great denominations of the 
state, the Baptists and the Methodists, to its support. He had lived 
in close contact with Emory College and had occupied a chair in 
Mercer University and this fact gave warrant to the idea that each 
denomination had accredited him, in practice at least, to the University. 

But his usefulness did not end here. 

He reconciled the General Assembly to the University. 

Before his election, the state had treated this great school with a 
parsimony scarcely equaled in the history of educational institutions. 
The few appropriations that had been made to it were secured after 
almost superhuman efforts on the part of its friends. They were 
small in amount, as if the state were doling out its charity to an un- 
grateful child; but no sooner had Mr. Hill taken the reins than the 
entire policy was changed. The result has been that more money has 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 15 


‘been received by the institution from the state and individuals, dur- 
ing Mr. Hill’s incumbency, than in all the previous years of the Uni- 
versity together, if only the appropriations from the United States 
Government are not counted. 

Exhibited to this sketch is a statement of the contributions which 
‘the University had received from all sources previous to the time Mr. 
Hill took charge. 

Counting the value of the land given in the outset and all the 
appropriations and private gifts, including the Brown Fund for the 
benefit of students, the whole receipts up to the year 1900 amounted 
to only $118,000.00. 

Since that time Mr. Hill has received from the state and from © 
private individuals the sum of $308,500—nearly three times what 
the University had received before his election. 

This remarkable showing will make his loss to the University the 
more conspicuous. 

Through the efforts mainly of one of our own representatives, 
~Hon. Joseph H. Hall, of Bibb, Mr. Hill obtained an annual appropria- 
-tion of $22,500.00 for the maintenance of the University proper. 

This was the first public recognition of such a claim by the Leg- 
islature since the founding of the institution. That maintenance fund 
has now become a fixture in the appropriation bills of the state, and 
it is believed will continue for all future time. If there were nothing 
-else that entitled both the legislator and the Chancellor to a just 
claim of immortality this fact is surely sufficient. 

To the warm friendship of Mr. George Foster Peabody for Mr. 
Hill is due the splendid donation of $50,000 which was given to the 
University for the erection of the Peabody Library. 

Many other donations from Mr. Peabody may be traced to the 
same source. 

He has more than doubled the attendance of students at the Uni- 
versity and the number now far surpasses that of any previous period 
in the history of the institution. 

Cut off in his prime, his death seems an irreparable and inex- 
plicable waste. He represented an aggregation of experience and 
judgment that entitled him to the companionship of the foremost 
men of the world and yet the University loses it all, ee state loses it 
. all, the race loses it all. 

He died a martyr to duty. Worn and weary with ee and 


16 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


exhausted with work during the summer in the effort to obtain from 
the Legislature recognition of the plans for the Agricultural Depart- 
ment, his frame almost collapsed and nervous prostration hung close 
upon his foot-steps. 

During that last year of his life he spoke ably to the committee 
of the Legislature with a pleading full of pathos and strength. He 
spoke to the joint session of the General Assembly with something of 
his old time vigor, but all his close friends knew the strain was killing 
him. 

When he returned from Europe in the late fall, however, he 
seemed to have entirely recovered his health, and promised readiness 
tor years of work—a promise alas! never to be realized. 

He was seized with pneumonia on his return from a visit to 
Savannah, in connection with the Colored School, at that place, and 
died in a few days thereafter. 

His last public utterance heard by any member of the Board was 
at the Memorial of Lyman Hall on the 25th day of November, 1905, 
in Atlanta, where he delivered one of the brightest and most effective 
speeches that ever fell from his lips. It was a discourse that set 
forth Lyman Hall’s martyrdom to the work of the Technological 
School. Looking back upon it now it seems that, by a species of 
prophecy, he was really describing his own approaching fate. 

In his association with this board, his quiet and unobtrusive 
manners, his gentleness of disposition, his excessive modesty served 
to almost hide the knowledge of his splendid intellectual endowments 
from the individual members thereof. 

We touched elbows with greatness, yet we scarcely seemed to 
know it, and it was only when he was dead that we began to see 
how wide-reaching had been his efforts and what unrivaled success 
was promising to crown his administration of the University’s af- 
fairs. 

He was an ideal chancellor; he had the University upon his heart 
and it followed him into his dreams. Constantly he was seeking out 
new fields of improvement and bringing to bear upon every detail 
of the work all the powers of his great intellect for the advancement 
of the institution. 

His intensely religious zeal gave its impress to the student body 
and few men,it is said, ever had such a hold upon the young men who 
attended the institution under his care. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 'y, 


The commanding position of the University today, its added 
equipment, its extended grounds, its splendid new edifices erected 
during his six years of service, will be the best monument to his 
memory for all time to come. 

Mr. Hill was happily married. Two daughters and two sons 
with a sorrowing wife survive him. 

His wife is a first honor graduate of Wesleyan College at Ma- 
con and was always a friend and companion to him in the highest 
intellectual sense, supplementing his own brilliant mind with her 
splendidly trained powers. To these—the widow and children—there 
can be no reparation for his death. Costly shafts and eloquent mem- 
orials will not bring back the loved one from the tomb nor blunt the 
keen sense of their loss. 

Mr. Hill’s place among the world’s men of mark has not yet been 
assigned to him. By some of the eulogists who have referred to 
him since his death he has been called “the great Educational States- 
man.” The words seem peculiarly apposite and fitly describe his 
standing. 

He was a great worker, yet his mental powers always outran 
his physical frame, for his body was too weak to support his wonder- 
ful mentality. 

On the Code revision he worked himself to exhaustion and 
struggled with the physical results upon his body for years. 

During the trial of a great case his brilliant and cultured mind 
so dominated his body, that he forgot for a time all sense of fatigue, but 
at the end, when the physical asserted itself again, he would almost 
suffer collapse. 

He slept very little. In fact it is said of him he spent more hours 
awake during the year probably than any man since Talleyrand. He 
was forever “pegging away.” No one ever saw him idle a moment. 
There was one ceaseless exertion and one steady and resistless ad- 
vance, for he used every moment in expanding thought or gathering 
new information. 

_ He had a wonderful power of detail. Everything was on hand 
to use at a moment’s notice and his desk in this respect was the 
type of his intellect, with all its stores of RE knowledge 
ready for use when demanded. 

He was well read on a great variety of subjects and his theories 


18 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


enabled him to group in a harmonious system every fact and achieve- 
ment, in all the wide range of his reading, thought and experience. 

He was methodical to an extreme. It was a trait that distin- 
guished him even in his college life—in fact, after all, his matured 
powers seem to have been only exaggerated copies of the same powers 
observable in his school life. 

In his partnership he kept track of all the business engagements, 
the time for answers, pleas and demurrers, the date of the courts, 
the summoning of witnesses, and all the hundred other like things 
that perplex and disturb the life of the busy lawyer struggling with a 
growing practice at the bar. 

He was never known to lose or mislay a paper, forget an engage- 
ment, or neglect the preparation of a case. His wonderful memory 
of detail was the safeguard of his firm. Many times his partner 
has waked at night from sleep, and, recalling some engagement or 
matter of business forgotten during the day, spent the remainder of 
the night in an agony of wakefulness only to find on going to the office 
in the morning that Mr. Hill had remembered the engagement or at- 
tended to the business on time. He never forgot. And so, through 
the long association, his mind grew, and his genius enlarged till he 
was fitted for the great office of Chancellor of the University of his 
native state. 

The Law has its graduates into Teaching as well as Teaching its 
eraduates into Law. 

Looking back over these trying and formative days it is hard 
to realize that we were all the time in contact with one of the world’s 
ereat men; that here in these commonplace surroundings, in an 
office where the poet Sidney Lanier once worked and studied over 
the dry details of the lawyer’s business, the great Chancellor grew 
to the full stature of his manhood, fitting himself to step off upon the 
arena of letters and learning and walk like a Colossus among the 
common herd of men! 

Mr. Hill was consistent in purpose and direct in action. 

He could say “no” when the circumstances demanded it. He 
never concealed his position or attempted to avoid responsibility. 

He was just in all his conduct. 

When put at the head of the University many anti-prohibitionists 
sent their sons to him. : 

After one of these young men had been under his charge some 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 19 


two or three months he wrote to his father, a prominent wholesale 
liquor dealer, these words: “Why, father, Mr. Hill treats me as he 
does any of the other students of the school. He doesn’t seem to make 
any difference.” 

He threw his great religious spirit into the business of the chan- 
cellorship, and his ideals began to expand, as his successes multiplied 
about him. 

He made friends of the lovers of education in the North and 
cpened the way to recognition by the great philanthropists there, of 
the position which this, the oldest State University in the nation, is of 
right entitled to occupy. 

If he had lived—with their help—he would have made the Unt- 
versity first in all the south, second to but few in the Union. 

For steady devotion to the work to which he had consecrated 


himself, for heroic sacrifice in the cause of education in our state, 


for courageous zeal and untiring perseverance in the effort to push 
the University forward, among its own people, among the people 
of the state, among the thinking portion of the world, Mr. Hill has 
never had a superior in this high position. 

In his private life he was a philanthropist without ostentation, 
a scholar without egotism, and an actor without knowledge of the 
footlights or the galleries. 

His constant aim was always to do some one some good. For 
this he lived his life. There was no one too low for his benevolence 
nor too high for his kindly admonition and encouragement. 

Numerous editors and writers of our time have given to the 
world the impression which his character made upon them. 

In the Outlook, in the Review of Reviews, in all the leading 
journals of the state, in the educational journals of the North 
and in publications in foreign lands, his death has been noted and 
his loss deplored. 

Prof. Mosely, late of Mercer University, speaking before the 
Current Topics and History Clubs of Macon on March 26th, 1906, 
used concerning him the following words: 

“Chancellor Hill, while not our greatest educator, was in my 
iudgment, the greatest educational leader and statesman the South 
has yet produced. He touched every phase of education in the state 
from the rural school to the University. He was also a leader in 
every phase of educational activity. 


20 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


“While his energies were directed primarily to the building up 
of a great university for this state, and a better educational sys- 
tem for Georgia and the South, as Albert Shaw has so justly said 
of him, he ‘ranked high among the men who live and work upon the 
national plane.’ He brought to the study of educational as well as 
other problems, such mature and reasonable views, and such a kind, 
fair and in every way admirable spirit, that we are not surprised that 
sc many of the leading men of the North who were vitally interest- 
ed in the South, ‘were always ready to say,’ to use Mr. Shaw’s words 
once again, ‘with respect to a given question of opinion, or a prob- 
lem of policy, it was quite sufficient to ascertain what Dr. Hill thought 
would be right with respect to matters concerning his own region, 
and then accept his views as a basis of a working policy.’ And the 
best and most intelligent Southern men and women prized Chancellor 
Hill’s wisdom, sanity and fair-mindedness as highly as did the best 
men of the North. The good and wise of any country or time would 
have recognized Chancellor Hill as a superior man and have found in 
him a true and worthy friend.” 

PERSONAL ESTIMATE OF ONE OF THE COMMIT TEE. 

The Honorable Dudley M. Hughes, one of the committee, his 
life-long friend and classmate, furnishes the following personal esti- 
mate: 

“As a college man Mr. Hill was the leader in everything that 
tended to uplift his associates. He was not only regarded as a man of 
brilliant parts, but a Christian by nature. He was admired and loved 
by every member of his class. I felt in those days that he would grow 
to be a great and useful man. I was not disappointed. I have watch- 
ed him all through his career, and I believe that his life was replete 
with success in all that makes a man great and good. 

“He was an eminent lawyer, not only an ornament to the bar, 
but a gifted son, of whom all Georgia was proud. 

“When the University was without a chancellor, he of all men 
was selected for this high position. In our expectation we were not 
disappointed, for no chancellor ever filled the chair with more credit 
and honor. 

“It seems strange that he should have been taken in this hour of 
his great usefulness. 

“Today he is happy eternally in Heaven, and I pray God to so 
direct that we may meet him there.” 


WALTER BARNARD HILL , 21 


ESTIMATE OF THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY. 

The following eloquent tribute was adopted by the Faculty of the 
University at a meeting following his death: 

Walter Barnard Hill, of the class of 1870, and of the Law Class 
of 1871, Chancellor of the University since 1899, having lovingly 
devoted his distinguished abilities in the best years of his life to the 
service of his Alma Mater, finally having laid life itself at her feet, 
the Faculty of the University of Georgia hereby record some expres- 
sion of their grief at the death of a well-loved colleague, friend, and 
chief, and their deep sense of loss sustained by the University, by the 
people of his native state, and by the whole nation. 

The eminent success of Mr. Hill’s administration as Chancellor, 
and of his leadership in the cause of education, was due not only to 
fine intellectual abilities, but also to the fundamental strength of a 
great character, known of all men. 

“Life, love and labour up to life’s last height, 
These three were stars unsetting in his sight.” 
_ TO CHANCELLOR HILL. 

George Herbert Clarke, teacher and essayist, wrote of him as 
follows: 

Honour and worth and work filled up your plan; 
To make the little large, the fettered free, 

To mould in college halls the gentleman 
And Georgian-to-be, 


Who should not dream the dastard dream of gain 
Through weaklings wronged, nor of the empty praise 
That babbling words may win, but choose the pain 
Of long laborious days, 


And in that toil-pain finding power and joy, 
Pursue it, leaving hope of meed with One 

Who mints His finest gold with due alloy, 
And sees its service done. 


O liberal student of the old and new, 
Bred of your spirit other men shall rise, 
Serene and wise and brave, and look on you 
With unforgetful eyes. 


22 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


So rest in peace, or, if it chance that Death 
Discover wider reaches, ampler rede, 
May your strong soul, while it adventureth, 
Remember still our need! 
Macon, Georgia. 
Peace to his ashes! May his grave in Oconee Cemetery, hard 
by his much loved Alma Mater, be like his life, an inspiration to all 
who loved him! 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 


UNIVERSITY SINCE ITS FOUNDATION. 


1784 Value of land given ... . $24,400 
1878 Appropriation ... 15,000 
ISSE A RM pLOpMAtiony seer. Nl nk its 2,000 
1864) ;Appropriation i/04/).05) 54 3,000 
1888 Appropriation ... ... 5,000 | 
1894 Appropriation ... . 3,000 
1896 Appropriation Keuicncel Hall) 29,900 
$82,300 
PRIVATE GIFTS. 
1801 Value of land given by Gov. Milledge .. ... $ 1,000 
1802 Cash by Jos. Gunn, Jr., a) 1,000 
1807. Cash by John Marks for apoaratis wan 1,000 
1854 Dr. Wm. Terrell (interest only available) .. 20,000 
1859 Robert Taylor (lost in the Wiel NRT eG 5,000 
1873 Athens (Moore College).. . 25,000 


23 


EXHIBIT OF CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED BY THE 


1879 McCay Fund (available about 2,000 A my 15,000 
1881 Brown Fund (interest for students)... . 50,000 


is 18.000 
Receipts since 1900 not included in the ordinary receipts from 
interest and fees: 


From the State: Candler and Denmark Halls ... $45,000 


Terrell and; Le Conte Halls... 2. 29,000 

DUIINEE OCHOOR We ts Ge a ns. EAA E MOC 

harmens \INStiporesn un aaa re OO 

Maintenance three (years cera alc G7 SOC 

Mr. Peabody: EADEAT yh cine nnn ym yon E 50,000 
Farm and bosdenie LOtS ee ey 22. OOO 

Alun and inends ss Wampusextensiony 0). EL TOU 
IMG SET ATS NIV ETS COLPEO CIS ONIN ON eg ah No While tual NaNO ANOS EOC 
HudeetLiorace Russell tizeessavsiien Sno ia, nD ay aGHl hE ROO 
Wire wan Wenmank iseholarshini ania diacanag Uhale ano 
Adoni Bandi yy Me GaGa aN ha Re eat CN CN a OCC 
Mr. Peabody: Chair of Fores athe We Vara da 
Contributions Gen. Ed. Board: Sear Binea ona 5,500 
Athens Alumni and Citizens: Campus Extension ...15,000 


$308,500 


24 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Mr. Hill’s Relation To The University. 


BY 
PROFESSOR DAVID C. BARROW, ACTING CHANCELLOR. 


I was in college with Walter Hill. We were in the same fraternity, 
in the same literary society. We were not far apart in age, but he was 
a Senior and I a Sophomore. As a boy he was methodical. self- 
contained, diligent, brilliant. I do not believe there was a student in 
the University who planned his work and adhered to his plan as he 
did. He was able to graduate with honor, debate regularly, take part 
in all the public affairs of the University—in short, to perform all the 
duties which pertain to citizenship in a college community, because 
he regulated his ability with system. 

He was very ready. In our May Queen performance Peter Mar- 
tin was late in making his appearance on the stage, and Walter re- 
heved the situation by remarking that his friend Peter was unusually 
blessed ; he had the two hands which common mortals possessed, and 
on this occasion he had got a little behind hand. 

At Commencement the regularly appointed orator was forced 
to leave the University on account of a death in his family, as I recall 
it, and Walter Hill, on a day’s notice, made the address of the Com- 
mencement, and entertained the large audience with a well-remember- 
ed speech on Current Topics. To his college-mates his success has 
caused no surprise; we did not expect him to fall short in any parti- 
cular. 

Mr. Hill came first to the University as Chancellor from his 
Clarkesville home. He and Mrs. Hill came down one night. Several 
members of the Faculty, with certain of his city friends, met him at 
the station. He declined the numerous invitations to private houses, 
giving as his reason that his time was limited on that first visit, and 
he needed it all in becoming acquainted with his work. 

In the brief informal reception that night in the parlor of the 
hotel, those who were strangers gained confidence, and those who 
knew him were reassured by the quiet power of his bearing. ‘The 
calmness of strength is manifest. 

People approach a great work in such different ways. One man 
has his fan in his hand, and announces that it is his to clear the chaff 


WALTER BARNARD HILL ys 25 


trom the wheat, his to separate the tares. Generally this man cannot 
‘discern between chaff and wheat. Indeed, we are told that it is a 
divine office to separate human tares from human wheat. 

Another man comes to his work in the spirit of a little child. 
And this is the spirit of science, this the spirit of wisdom, this the 
spirit of calm strength. When Chancellor Hill was lying in his house 
for the last time, Professor Snelling said to me: “Mr. Hill came to 
the University in the spirit of a little child; I declare, it was beauti- 
ful.” And it was. The prayer of the wise man was his prayer: “I 
am but a little child; I know not how to go out or to come in. Give 
therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people.” 
In order to inform himself, he voluntarily performed as many de- 
tails as his time would permit. I remember that on one important 
committee, after he had attended several meetings and heard the dis- 
cussions, he asked the chairman to go ahead without him, adding, 
“I took a place on the committee to hear the discussion. I wanted to 
be informed.” 

I know from himself, that, after careful study, and as a conse- 
auence of that study, he changed his views on many college activities 

Mr. Hill’s first work was to learn the environment of the Uni- 
versity. He took the trouble to become acquainted with the citizens 
of Athens, to make friends with them. That first visit left him with 
a list and a description of the many citizens to whom he had been 
introduced. He did not hold that the University was independent of 
the town; on the contrary, he realized that the University was very 
dependent on the town. He encouraged efforts to draw them nearer 
and make them helpful to each other. Before the University opened 
that fall Athens was his, and Athens will remain his. With singular 
unanimity, her people realize that when the University lost this great 
Chancellor, Athens lost her first citizen. | 

Mr. Hill knew that the success of his administration would de- 
pend on making friends of the members of his Faculty. He succeed- 
ed, in one way and another, in showing especial kindness to each one. 
His judgment was marvellously accurate as to the manner in which 
each one could be won, and his dealing with them sincere and direct. 
It is surprising, indeed, how soon he learned the way to each one’s 
heart. 

He was responsive without being effusive. He listened with 
patience to the numerous worries which we brought him, helped us 


26 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


to look at all sides, and gave us of his calmness when we were 
harassed through that nervous exhaustion which comes, as I be- 
lieve, to all thorough-going téachers. 

He greatly valued what he called the spirit of service; by which 
he meant a willingness to do the general work of the University. 
When he found one who was willing to aid in this way, he valued that 
mian and let him know that his service was appreciated. 

No one knew better than he that the real efficiency of the Unt- 
versity depended on effective work in its schools; and few knew 
so well how much the University could be advanced by having each 
one do a part in the general welfare work. 

He was a practical friend, a man who preferred to show rather 
than tell his friendship. He was a wise friend—and he was so patient. 
Above all else, he could be relied on. He was one of those rare men who 
will do more than he will promise. When men find such a man there 
comes the feeling of great restfulness. We trusted in his a 
we rested on his reliability. 

What a great thing it is in shifting life, to find now and then 
one of these unchangeable men! A chancellor holds the well-being 
uf the professors in his hands; and nothing binds them to him so 
strongly as a confidence that he can be depended on. ‘The main 
thing in having men stand by you is to let them know where to stand. 

To me the most beautiful feature in the friendship which grew — 
up between Mr. Hill and his Faculty was its growth. It was a 
living friendship, and its end is not yet. Just a little while ago, one 
of our most reserved professors said to me that he missed Mr. Hill 
more than at first. So do we all. 

His dealing with the Faculty as a body was a model of deference 
and courtesy. Any matter which was brought before the Faculty 
for decision was decided by them, and he would loyally abide the de- 
cision. 

You will find in no body of the same size so many men who 
think for themselves as you will find in a college faculty. Being 
accustomed to know some one thing better than any other member. 
cf his community, the professor naturally comes to think that this 
knowledge extends to general affairs. The work of his life being to 
seek and teach truth, the professor will accept it when he finds and 
sees it. Dr. Hill knew that if these learned, truth-seeking men could 
argue out a question they would reach a proper conclusion. His 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 27 


Faculty meetings were lengthy, but they sifted out the truth. He 
himself consumed hardly any of the time. He was frequently ab- 
sent from the meetings during the latter part of his administration, 
sometimes being busy in the adjoining room. While it is true that his 
time was called for by many duties, it seems to me also that he had 
learned to trust his friends in the Faculty. 

Mr. Hill had great reverence for law. He believed that laws 
were carefully made, and that they should be observed. He adhered 
to and upheld the law. This he did uniformly. All a young man 
really expects is justice. When the students found that the laws 
were respected and administered uniformly, they agreed that justice 
was given, and in their hearts they approved. His manner of dealing 
with complaints—and complaints are frequent in a college—was a 
patient and calm consideration. He could see both sides, he would 
show both sides, and this enabled him to settle many difficulties. 

The students knew that he was exact in carrying out his prom- 
ises. They knew that he was careful in making up a judgment, and 
they learned that cause must be shown, and good cause, before he 
would change a conclusion. One of the most difficult details in 
college administration is the dealing with absences. Dr. Hill used to 
say that the dealing with absences was like the selection of judges 
for the courts: no method was satisfactory, and so it went a round 
ot methods. He took this matter in hand himself for two years, and 
without any severe discipline he stopped absences. He made his laws, 
he was prompt in enforcing them, and absences ceased. 

His teaching work was restricted, during the last years, to cer- 
tain courses in the. Law School. With these he was satisfied, and 
these he continued. When he was elected Chancellor he was given 
the work in Ethics. I saw him surrender this work with great regret. 
Of course, he was pressed for time, but I believe he was dissatisfied - 
with his success—or, it would be more exact to say, his apparent 
sticcess. Perhaps in technical method he was not usual, I cannot say, 
but I know a profound ethical influence was exerted by his teaching, 
such as is rarely seen. I have never doubted that it was a pity he gave 
up this class. 

He made careful preparation, he taught that which was beauti- 
ful and true, and his life enforced the teaching of his lips—or let 
me rather say, his lips but expressed the strength and beauty of his 
life. 


28 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Our examinations ended on the Friday before Christmas. A 
large number of boys were left on the campus, idle, waiting for the 
morning train. A lady was lying at the point of death on Lumpkin 
street, and the boys were asked to make no noise on that side of the 
campus. We did not realize how serious was Mr. Hill’s condition, 
but out of caution I told the boys to make no demonstration of Christ- 
mas joy near his house. The campus was the quietest place in 
Athens that night. I sat in my office until nearly ten o’clock. No 
fireworks were exploded, no noise was heard, not a single student 
was unmindful of the great man who was bravely, patiently fighting 
his last fight. It seems to me that no higher tribute of the love and 
respect of his students was ever paid to the great Chancellor than that 
paid by the silent campus. 

Of his work in developing the University I cannot speak. I 
hardly know who can speak. Mr. Hill was a silent man. He knew 
that I knew of the beginning of the work, but we never spoke of it. 
My knowledge came from consultations with Mr. Shackelford over 
the values of the properties which were to be included. 

After the purchases had been made, he told the Faculty one Jay 
or his dream of the greater University of the future; its drives, its 
halls, its residences, its life. It was a beautiful picture which he 
presented. Whether we will live to see it materialize or not, who can 
tell? Our Ulysses will never return, and who can bend his bow? 

After all has been said that may be said, he did great deeds be- 
cause he was great, he did lovely deeds because he was kind, he did 
good deeds because he was pure in heart and could see God. 


z IPR Ae 


UNIVE. Op >! Vv 


Ye Wel 
Ty c 
Ojg 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 2y 


Vin RIA The University 


BY 
WILLIS H. BOCOCK, PROFESSOR OF GREEK. 


As men, not walls and battlements, constitute a state, so a uni- 
versity consists not of lands and buildings, not even of libraries and 
laboratories, but of men, men of high ideals, of liberal culture, of 
special training, who, admitting young men to fellowship with them, 
devote trained minds to the search for truth, and strong characters 
to its maintenance. Lands and buildings constitute its body, men are 
the life and soul of it. 

Not all studies are university studies, not all of them attract the 
kind of men that make up a university; not all of them afford the 
inspiration for a life time of scientific research, not all of them furnish 
the subtle tonic reaction of noble content upon the devoted mind. 

Among the great subjects of study which do possess such quali- 
tative value the law holds no mean position; it has noble and 
ennobling content; it has an inspiring history—its long line of dis- 
tinguished names forever associated with the struggle for political 
and intellectual liberties, for the fundamentals of justice. 

It was from years of devotion to the law, at the bar and in the 
professor’s chair, that Mr. Hill came to be a part of the University 
of Georgia. Franklin College, the University Law School, and the 
persistent study of the law gave him his academic training and his 
academic ideals. 

Now, Mr. Hill, in the thoroughness of his intellectual equip- 
ment and in the strength of a noble character, was the stuff that 
great universities are made of. Himself unconscious of the fact, 
he was himself a chief constituent part of the greater university he 
had begun to build. To knowledge he added a willingness to learn. 
To steadfastness in upholding truth as he saw it, he added the essen- 
tial grace of tolerance,—the fundamental principle of all university 
fe and influence—the maintenance of intellectual liberty, the right 
of free thought and free speech. 

But Mr. Hill was not only a part of the University, he was its 
administrative head. I shall not take time to speak of his gentle 
courtesy as a presiding officer, of his cordial appreciation of the work 


3c WALTER BARNARD HILL 


of his colleagues, of the ideals which he held up to the student body. 
I wish to make the point that in developing his plans for the future 
ot the University of Georgia, Mr. Hill conceived its functions in the 
broadest spirit of democracy. If education be the surest path to 
aristocracy in a republic, Mr. Hill felt that the way must be made 
accessible to all the youth of the state. He conceived of the Univer- 
sity as the keystone of the arch of public education. But more than 
this; he sought from the beginning to bring its work into close 
relation to the people, and apply its scientific activities to the solution of 
problems of vital interest to the masses. We shall always associate 
with Mr. Hill’s name the great expansion of the University’s lands 
and buildings, but these are the mere externals of a deeper policy. 
With a hearty appreciation of the work of the several departments 
ot the University, with a determination to enlarge and strengthen 
all of them, nevertheless Mr. Hill, I think, gave the most of his 
thought to the development of the School of Agriculture, that group 
of applied sciences which comes in closest touch with the chief 
material interest of the state. And in this policy the University was 
served not only by his ability in making the most of a strategic posi- 
tion, but his character again, to end as I began, commanding as it 
did the implicit confidence of the people of the state, was a tower of 
strength, bearing aloft the light of leadership. 


=e =) 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 31 


Chancellor Hill’s Relation To The Board Of 


Trustees. 
BY 
JUDGE ENOCH H. CALLAWAY. 


In mourning the death of a great and useful man we are but 
giving expression to some of the noblest and most exalted emotions 
of the human race. The honor which we give to the truest and best 
of the past is, in some measure, our brightest promise for the future. 
It is.an oft expressed sentiment that a nation without monuments is 
a nation without ideals, and a people without lofty ideals is a people 
without the possibility of great achievement, either in the present or 
the immediate future. 

So that in thus assembling to do reverence to the memory of 
the late Chancellor Hill, we not only honor this great institution, of 
which he was the head, but we increase the esteem and respect in 
which we are held by all thinking people. 

Our experience since the death of Dr. Hill furnishes a striking 
iilustration of the influence and power of a great and good man’s 
spirit on the earth even after death, for of him we can truthfully say 
“being dead he yet speaketh.” How often in the last few months, 
in discussing the University work and the great movement for the 
extension and development of the University, have we heard such 
expressions as these: ‘The Chancellor thought thus and so,” “Mr. 
Hill’s plans were these,” or “This was the Chancellor’s idea as to the 
manner in which the matter in hand should be done,” and numerous 
similar expressions. The power and force of this influence is best 
demonstrated by the spirit and zeal with which the work is being 
taken up and pressed towards consummation, and to a full realiza- 
tion of the plans and hopes which were his. 

In his relation to the board of trustees, he was essentially the 
head of the University. Before the faculty and the student body he 
was the representative of the board of trustees, and before the board 
of trustees he was the representative of the faculty and the student 
body, and in the scope of the Greater University, he occupied the 
same position between the board of trustees and the branch colleges, 


32 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


and none of these interests ever suffered for failure of loyalty or 
fair consideration at his hands. 

If he had his favorites among the state’s institutions engaged 
in the work of education, no one ever learned which they were from 
his communications to the board or from his addresses to the Legis- 
lature or its committees. Indeed his zeal and interest covered the 
entire field of educational work in the state, embracing common - 
schools, high schools, industrial, technical, professional, normal and 
literary colleges. 

Most of the problems which were constantly arising in the 
administration of the University and its branch colleges were worked 
out and solved by him before presentation to the board for action. 
Indeed I do not recall a single instance of a matter presented to the 
board for its action where the reference was not accompanied by a 
recommendation or suggestion from the Chancellor which either 
aided or resulted in its proper solution. | 

If there were petty jealousies or partisan factions in any depart- 
ment of the University work, they never reached the board through 
the Chancellor by intimation or otherwise. In fact, he was so unsel- 
fishly devoted to the great work of educational development in 
Georgia, and so earnestly using the University and all its branches 
to further this great work, that he largely disarmed petty jealousies 
end overcame narrow prejudices not only in the University family, 
but from outside sources. : 

In his administration he was eminently fair and just, and always, 
in reporting matters with his recommendations, he stated fully and 
frankly the position and contention of the other side. 

While not dictatorial or overbearing in his dealings with the 
board on questions of policy and administration, he had the courage 
of his convictions, and always maintained his positions with forcible 
argument and sound reason. , 

Realizing the importance of harmony and unity of action in 
a great institution like this, he was constantly playing the role of 
peace-maker, but no one who knew the man could truthfully charge that 
he ever sacrificed principle for expediency. 

He was ever ready to seek and act upon the advice of others, but 
he was pre-eminently a leader and possessed the rare faculty and 
happy combination of being both a promoter and a builder. 

After passing the middle of life, he left his profession in which 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 33 


he had attained great success, and surprised even those who knew 
him best by displaying an administrative ability in the management 
of the University and its varied interests in a manner which not only 
challenged admiration, but in a great measure silenced the criticisms 
which had been doing so much harm to the educationai interests of 
the state. 

Neither self-interest nor self-aggrandizement formed any part 
of the motives which influenced him in giving up his profession and 
its emoluments to devote the best years of his maturer life to the great 
work of developing and lifting to a higher moral and intellectual 
plane the state and people which he loved so well. He was e:ually 
unselfish in the smaller details of college life and its compensations, 
ever preferring the interests of others to his own, and the interests 
of the University over all. 

Belonging to no faction, political or otherwise, by sheer force of 
character, Christian manhood, keen intellect, ripe scholarship, literary 
culture, and his fearless defense and aggressive advocacy of high 
moral principles and practices, he commanded and obtained the 
respect and admiration of all people of every faction. 

To sum up, he was truly a wise man, for he saw in life what was 
best for man, and he straightway sought it, with all his God-given 
talent, for humanity. 


—~ Lae Ne 


34 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Mr.Hill’s Relation To The State. 


BY 


HON. JOSEPH M. TERRELL, GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA. 


Georgia and her educational institutions suffered a great loss in 
the death of Chancellor Hill. By this ending of an exalted life a 
moral vacancy has been created; there are few who were constructed 
in gentler mold. A man of rare culture has been removed from 
society ; thousands will miss his pleasing personality. A lawyer pro- 
found in the principles of the science has been ordered to abandon his 
research. An able educator has surrendered the chair of learning 
to some one who shall come hereafter. His conduct in the class 
room and his devotion to this great institution have endeared him 
to old and young alike. 


Walter B. Hill was a devoted son of Georgia. As a citizen he 
was an exemplary type; as a lawyer he belonged to the finished 
school; and as Chancellor of the State University he was an idealistic 
success. His life and character were so blended with his scholarly 
attainments as to fit him in a peculiar way for the position in which 
he rounded out his last days. His efforts in behalf of the University 
of Georgia will live forever. Of him it may be said, 

“He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one; 
Exceeding wise, fair-spoken and persuading.” 

My acquaintance with Chancellor Hill was only casual, until I 
was elected to the office of governor. I had admired him as a citizen 
and lawyer, for his many admirable qualities and distinguished at- 
tainments. But after I entered upon the duties of governor, I fre- 
quently came into close contact with him, where it was my opportunity 
to study him as an official, and it was here that I formed the 
estimate of him as a valuable public servant, whose life was thoroughly 
inter-woven with the advancement of the institution that claimed the 
best part of his heart, and the last of his life work. 

It seems to ordinary perception a strange dispensation of Provi- 
dence that deflects and cuts down evolutional progress just at a time 
when it is about to touch something yet a little higher in the realms of 
knowledge. But this is in accord with that struggling effort in man 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 35 


which we are pleased to call civilization. It is a part of the history 
of all the aeons of the past; it is a phase of the many conflicting 
forces at work in the present; and it is destined to stand during the 
vast expanse of the future, in the way of that higher accomplishment 
for which men have ever yearned, and which will always be denied 
by Him who presides over the mystical universe of thought. 

In accordance with this inscrutable law on December 28, 1905, 
our Heavenly Father appeared on the scene of varied human endeavor, 
and spoke the fateful words: Thy labor shall cease; thy work of 
accomplishment shall this day end forever. Come thou into my eter- 
nal kingdom. 

With hearts bowed in respect for the cultured and the lamented 
dead, let us in a spirit of sincere appreciation and sympathy invoke: 
“Peace to his ashes.” 


30 WALTER BARNARD HILL, 


Mr. Hill’s Relation To Bench And Bar. 


BY 


HON. ANDREW J. COBB, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE 
SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA. 


Walter Barnard Hill received his degree as Bachelor of Law 
from the Law School of this University in 1871. In the same year 
he was admitted to the bar of the Superior Court. In 1874 he was 
admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of Georgia. At a later 
date he was licensed to practice in the courts of the United States in 
Georgia. Still later he became a member of the bar of the Supreme 
Court of the United States. 

Immediately upon his admission to the bar he became a partner 
of his father, Hon. Barnard Hill, and when his father was appointed 
Judge of the Superior Court, in 1873, he formed a partnership: with 
his friend and college mate, Hon. N. E. Harris, which continued 
until his retirement from the practice. From the outset of his pro- 
fessional career, the business that came to him was of a varied nature, 
but his diligence was so great, his resources so numerous. and his 
attainments of such high character, that he was able to withstand all 
the demands made upon him by the diversified interests he was called 
upon to represent. 

He was learned in the law. His mind was a storehouse of the 
rules of law. But he was not content to inform himself merely as to 
the existence of these rules. He searched out the reason upon which 
they were based, and acquired knowledge of the foundations upon 
which the principles of law rested. He was no mere reader of the 
rulings of courts and dicta of judges,—he sought for the reason which 
called forth these utterances. His learning was of that character 
which enabled him to discriminate between the true and the false, 
even though the latter might have the insignia of judicial sanction. 

He was a scholarly lawyer. He was not only a student of the 
principles of law, but a close reader of the literature of the law. The 
biographies of eminent lawyers and judges interested him. ‘Their 
writings attracted him whether they related only to the law itself, or 
those subjects more or less connected with the law upon which the 
writers had given to the world the benefit of their thought and re- 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 37 


search. His investigations went far beyond the matters in which the 
ordinary attorney would find an interest. He was a man of books, 
but not merely a man of law books. His information was wide, his 
culture was broad. He was a lawyer and not a mere practitioner. 

Learning and scholarship have been known to have the effect of 
disqualifying one for service in the practical affairs of life. In a 
lawyer they sometimes restrict his usefulness to limited fields of oper- 
ation. They may render him useful as a text writer, as an essayist or 
a lecturer, and entirely unfit him for practical work at the bar. 

This was not the case with Mr. Hill. He was not only a learned 
and scholarly lawyer, but a successful practitioner. It was none the 
less in his power to conduct a case in court with all the requisite skill 
of a nisi prius practitioner, than it was to entertain and instruct a 
cultured audience by an address or lecture. 

The lawyer who is engaged in a general practice must be so 
constituted as to exhibit two phases of character, the one rdminis- 
trative, the other litigious. In his administrative capacity he acts as 
an adviser, not only to those who anticipate complications and desire 
to be so guided as to avoid them; but also to those who have already 
become involved and wish to become extricated in a manner consist- 
ent with rectitude, but without a resort to the courts. The appeal of 
such persons is to that phase of the lawyer’s character in which he 
stands out as a maker and preserver of peace. 

His view of the situation must be that of an arbitrator, and suc- 
cess in this line of practice almost calls for those faculties which are 
essential to the performance of judicial functions. 

In his litigious capacity he acts as a champion. This phase of 
his character does not generally appear and should never appear 
until peace is no longer possible,—when just reparation of injury is 
withheld. Under such conditions the aggrieved party has a right to 
appeal to the established tribunals of the law and call to his aid the 
lawyer,—now changed from a minister of peace to an advocate of 2 
cause, ready to meet in forensic encounter the representative of the 
adverse party. 

There are many who are peculiarly fitted for the administrative 
work of the profession, and a number who are well qualified for its 
litigious work. There are some who are so constituted that they can 
perform well the work of either character.—they can bring peace 
with honor in the quiet of the office, or uphold with force and vigor 


28 WALTER BARNARD HILL 
the cause of a client in the combat of the court room. Mr. Hill was 
of this class. | 

I will not undertake on this occasion to call attention to all those 
elements which combined to make him a successful lawyer in both 
capacities. I will advert only to some of his leading characteristics 
which were largely instrumental in bringing about the result. 


He was truthful. He was conscious that his profession was dis- 
tinctly a calling of truth. He realized that the whole fabric of the 
law was laid on truth as its foundation. “The object of all legal in- 
vestigation is the discovery of the truth.” | 


There may be those who will say this statement is trite. When 
a lawyer so considers it, he has either never fully appreciated the char- 
acter of the avocation he is following, or he is tending in a direction 
which will lead him inevitably into a position where he can no longer 
be looked upon as a worthy member of the profession. 


The name given to that which is a termination of a legal investi- 
gation—the verdict, the spoken truth,—should be a daily reminder 
to the lawyer of the high calling he is pursuing. A verdict which is 
not the truth is a crime against the law. A lawyer who willfully and 
knowingly aids in bringing about such a verdict is in the eyes of the 
law a monster. 


Mr. Hill never lost sight of the fact that as a lawyer he was 
at all times an advocate of truth. He clung to the truth wherever it 
appeared. It is therefore not at all strange when we find him from 
his early manhood a consistent follower of Him who said, “I am the 
ret 

He was industrious. Though frail in body, his capability for 
work was great. His willingness to work was greater. 


He was cautious. His conclusions were arrived at deliberately. 
His expression of them was in measured words. ‘There was no haste 
in the one, nor careless utterance in the other. 

His cautious disposition did not, however, have the effect to 
make him timid. He was bold and aggressive when duty and occas-: 
ion required it. He did not seek out responsibility in order to make 
a display of his courage, neither did he flee from peril when duty 
required him to face it. Once satisfied as to that which duty and 
truth required of him he was fearless in his conduct, and the resulting 
consequences, no matter how gravely they might affect his own wel- 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 39 


fare or his aspirations in life, were of no concern, neither deterring 
him, nor evoking explanation or apology. 


He was faithful. His best efforts were at the service of every 
client whose cause he could conscientiously advocate. It was the 
cause, and not the client or the compensation, which apreale to his 
powers. The cause of the humblest negro, involving his small estate. 
or simple home, insignificant though it be in value, once undertaken 
by him would receive the same earnest and careful attention that he 
would have bestowed upon the matters of the most influential and 
wealthy client he ever represented. 


Mr. Hill was a lawyer, but not a mere lawyer. He was inter- 
ested in every movement which had for its purpose the elevation of 
his profession, and the bringing about of a just appreciation of its 
importance and its dignity. He was one of the organizers of the 
Georgia Bar Association, was its first secretary and_ treasurer, 
and afterwards its president. He was the author of numerous reports 
and papers appearing in the volumes of its proceedings. 


Upon his retirement from the bar to accept the position of Chan- 
cellor of the University, he was unanimously elected a life member of 
the association, an honor which prior to that time had only been twice 
conferred, first upon Chief Justice Bleckley, and then tipon Mayor 
Charles H. Smith, a retired lawyer, better known to those of this day 
2s Bill Arp, the writer and philosopher. 


He assisted in the formation of the law school of Mercer Uni- 
versity, and was for several years a professor in that school. His 
interest in the affairs of the Law School of this University. is well 
known. He was for a number of years a member of the board of 
trustees of Vanderbilt University. 


He was one of the revisers of the Code of 1873. He introduced 
into this Code the system of placing at the end of each chapter and 
section a reference to the decisions of the Supreme Court relating to 
the subject dealt with in the section or chapter. The attorney general, 
Hon. N. J. Hammond, to whom this Code was submitted for examina- 
tion says in his report that these annotations “are full and accurate, 
if not exhaustive” and “form a new and excellent addition to this 
Code and greatly increase its value.” This system of annotation has 
been followed in subsequent Codes. It is to be noted that this work 
was done when he was barely twenty-one years of age, and within 


40 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


two years after he was admitted to the bar. He was also one of the 
revisers of the Code of 1882. | 

He was a member of the special commission or court created to 
consider the claims of the lessees of the Western and Atlantic Rail- 
road against the state for improvements placed on the road during 
the continuance of the lease of 1870. ‘These claims amounted to 
more than a half million dollars. The resolution required the gover- 
nor to appoint as members of the commission “eight citizens of 
Georgia recognized as men eminent for their integrity and ability,” 
and directed that the commission consider the claims of the lessees 
as well as any that the state might have against them, and that in con- 
sidering these claims “regard shall be had to the rights of the sover- 
eigen state of Georgia, and that finding made which will secure the 
rights of both the people and the lessees.” He was the youngest 
member of this commission, and much younger than all his associates. 
The appropriateness of his appointment was universally recognized. 
In character and attainments he was peculiarly fitted for the delicate 
duties involved in the work of this commission. 

At the banquet had in 1890 in the city of New York, as a part 
of the centennial celebration of the organization of the Federal Judi- 
ciary, he was one of the six lawyers chosen to make addresses. Among 
the other lawyers who made addresses on this occasion were Justice 
Harlan, Senator Evarts, Chief Justice Paxson of Pennsylvania, and 
Joseph H. Choate. His being called to participate in this celebration 
furnishes evidence of the standing accorded to him by the bar of the 
country. 

He was not an office seeker, but he was never unmindful of the 
duties of citizenship resting upon him. He took a lively interest in 
public affairs, and especially those questions relating to good govern- 
ment and the moral welfare of the people. He advocated measures 
that he thought were for the general welfare, desiring as a reward to 
himself only the benefit of those incidents which inevitably result 
from a government administered along proper lines. 

Any movement which had for its basis the suppression of evil 
or the relief of human suffering always appealed to him, aroused his 
interest and received his support. 

He served the public without the reward usually demanded. He 
was a public servant in the highest and best sense of that term. There 
was no motive of selfishness behind the service rendered. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL AI 

There can be no public service higher, or nobler, or purer, than 
that which is “given for the love of God, or for the love of your 
neighbor, in the catholic and universal sense—given from these mo- 
tives and to these ends—free from the stain or taint of every con- 
sideration that is personal, private or selfish.” 

After having been nearly thirty years at the bar he was called 
to a.new sphere of activity. He had been accustomed to act as the 
guide of those who had already embarked upon the sea of life. He 
was now to spend his remaining days in a work where those who had 
not embarked were to be prepared to avoid or overcome its perils. 

One who succeeds in avoiding or overcoming the perils of life 
deserves great credit. One who spends his life in guiding others so 
that they may overcome them, deserves greater. The one who 
devotes his life to a work having for its purpose the training and 
disciplining of the young and inexperienced so that the difficulties of 
life are lessened and their sphere of usefulness to mankind is increased, 
deserves greatest credit. 

I esteem it a high privilege to have been allowed to represent the 
legal profession on this occasion. I am conscious that what I have 
said in reference to the work and character of Mr. Hill as a lawyer 
is far from adequate. Full justice to both must hereafter be the task 
of those who are better fitted for the undertaking. What I have 
said, however, will convey some idea of the position he held among 
his brethren of the Georgia bar. 

His accomplishments were great, his ideals were high, his pro- 
fessional career was blameless. He was a fearless and faithful advo- 
cate of truth. Such was the estimate placed upon him by his brethren 
oi the bar who practiced by his side, as well as his brothers upon the 
bench who were always enlightened by his arguments. 


42 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Mr. Hill’s Relation to The Denominational 
Colleges. | 


BY 
DR. CHAS. LEE SMITH, PRESIDENT MERCER UNIVERSITY. 


My personal acquaintance with the late Chancellor rests upon a 
letter, an address and a conversation. This all too brief relationship 
covered a period of less than five months, yet in that short time he 
so won my regard by the many evidences of his good will that I feel 
justified in appearing among his life-time friends on this occasion and 
claiming the honor of his ennobling friendship. 

His cordial letter of welcome in behalf of the University of 
(seorgia was one of the first received after my acceptance of the call 
to labor in this commonwealth. Later, on the occasion of my formal 
induction into office, he came to Mercer to extend a public welcome 
in behalf of the schools of the state. Some two weeks before his 
death we were guests at a dinner and during the evening opportunity 
was found to discuss educational conditions and college discipline. 

Lest this personal acquaintance, though cherished’ by me, be 
deemed too limited to justify my participation in these memorial ex- 
ercises, permit me to say that my knowledge of this exemplary © 
American dates from the time when he became the educational 
leader of Georgia and a consistent interpreter to the nation, particu- 
larly to our northern brethren, of that nobler Southern spirit whick, 
forgetful of past sectional differences, is animating our people to 
consider all questions not from the standpoint of tradition, however 
hallowed that tradition may be, but from the viewpoint of unshackled 
right, however iconoclastic that principle may prove. 

There is an added, and probably weightier reason why a repre- 
sentative of Mercer University should pay tribute to his memory, 
since it was as a professor of law in that institution he began his acad- 
emic career. For five years he was a distinguished member of the 
Mercer faculty and many are the lawyers, now well known in this 
and other states, who profited from his comprehensive legal wisdom 
and impressive Christian character. 

In considering Chancellor Hill’s relation to the denominational 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 43 


colleges, the first thought that comes to my mind is that he exempli- 
fied in his own life, in a practical way, the principles for which the 
denominational college stands in theory, if not always in fact; and 
with such a man to determine its policies and direct its affairs, any 
college, whatever the nominal control, could but be a Christian insti- 
tution, fostering and promoting those ideals that are the salt of our 
civilization. 

And just here let me say that in choosing a college, parents 
should let the deciding factor be the characteristics of the men who 
are to teach their sons rather than the name, whether state or church, 
that the institution bears. Fortunate is the youth who during the 
formative period of his life comes under the influence of a man like 
Chancellor Hill, and it would be worth his while to cross seas and 
continents to study in an institution having a faculty composed of 
such character-making personalities. 

In the conversation to which reference has been made, he empha- 
sized the thought that the prime object of the college is to make good 
citizens rather than great scholars, and referring to one of the mem- 
bers of his faculty said that he desired every student who entered the 
University of Georgia to study Greek, not primarily for the sake of 
that language, important as he considered Greek to be, but rather that 
he might come under the manhood-developing influence of the pro- 
fessor who taught it. 

I sometimes fear that in our efforts to secure scholars for our 
college faculties we are prone to overlook the more important requisite 
of soul-inspiring personality. The late Senator Hoar, so I was told 
by an Eastern friend who heard the statement, said that when Har- 
vard was richer in men than in money, she chose her professors from 
scholarly citizens who, by building for themselves enviable reputations 
based upon spotless characters, had demonstrated that they were 
fitted to lead young men into the higher life as well as into the higher 
learning. Once when the trustees insisted that a lawyer, then well 
known, should become a member of the Harvard faculty, he inquired 
what chair would be assigned him. He was told the only vacant one 
was that of mathematics. But, said he, I am not a mathematician. 
The trustees replied, but you are a man, and we wish you to aid in 
making our sons men. The distinguished jurist, appreciating the call 
to such exalted service, became a teacher of mathematics that ah 
might thereby become a maker of men. 


44 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Doubtless it was some such feeling as this that induced Mr. Hill 
to give up his career as a lawyer to become the head of this noble 
foundation. Certain it is, such were his character and attainments, 
that he was actuated by no unworthy motive in accepting a position 
that demanded ceaseless effort under trying conditions, taxing both 
mind and body to the utmost, and yet offering no adequate reward 
except that received from a conscience conscious of needed duty faith- 
fully and helpfully performed. 

Not only did he brilliantly serve this. University, but with equal 
zeal he advocated every educational interest in this state. This can 
be illustrated by his interest in Mercer, He wrote, “I assure you of. 
the willingness of this institution to co-operate with you in every way 
in advancing the cause of higher education in Georgia.’ Afterwards, 
recalling the fact that he was a former citizen of Macon, he promised 
to come to that city at any time I desired his aid in the canvass, 
planned at the late session of the Georgia Baptist Convention, for an 
additional half-million dollars endowment for Mercer. In his death 
we realize the loss. of a most able, faithful, helpful and in | every way 
sympathetic friend. 

Chancellor Hill was a positive force in creating and propagating 
ideas and ideals for the betterment of humanity. He was a man of 
convictions, and even when his opinions were not in accord with 
those of the majority of his most influential fellow-citizens, he did 
not hesitate to advocate them. His notable utterances on the liquor, 
the negro, and other questions of state and national importance proved 
him to be a man of conscience and courage. Not only did he claim 
and exercise the right to think for himself, but he conspicuously de- 
fended the principle of freedom of speech when other scholars were 
attacked by the Southern press for publishing convictions which did 
not harmonize with accepted Southern thought. He ever contended 
that we should , 

“Honor the man who is willing to sink 

Half his present repute for the freedom to think; 
And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, 
Will sink the other half for the freedom to speak.’ 

In defending the principle that a man has a right to honestly 
voice his views concerning men and measures, even when those views . 
are contrary to the accepted beliefs and the current thinking of his 
environment, Chancellor Hill rendered the South a great and much 


WALTER BARNARD HILL. 45 


needed service. And yet this exemplar of intellectual honesty and 
champion of intellectual freedom was loyal to the South, and under 
all circumstances he worthily contended for her best traditions. 
Measured by the standards of his beloved home land, he was one of 
'.. “The knightliest of the knightly race 
That, since the days of old, 
Have kept the lamp of chivalry 

Alight in hearts of gold.” 

The record of his life, writ large in the history of this state, 
proves him to have been a social, an intellectual, a moral, and a reli- 
gious inspiration. 

Young gentlemen of the University of Georgia, as devotedly as 
you reverenced your Chancellor, I doubt if you. ever fully realized 
his yearning, fatherly affection for you. Discussing the question of 
college discipline, he said the primary object of such discipline should 
be to save the boy. He told of a young man who had been borne with 
for two years, but since he failed to mend his ways it became neces- 
sary to request his father to take him home.. In speaking of the 
pain it gave him to take this action, he revealed his great, tender, lov- 
ing heart. He manifested in his own conduct the precepts that he 
taught you to practice. From his youth up, he exemplified those 
Christian virtues that crown the noblest lives.. His acts were living 
epistles of godliness and his conversation revealed the spotless purity 
of his inmost thought, It is the testimony of his most intimate friends 
that at all times 


“He spake of men 
As one who found pure gold in each of them, 
He spake of women just as if he dreamed 
About his mother ; and he spoke of God 
As if he walked with Him and knew His heart.” 

Young gentlemen, I beg you to emulate his example. So live 
that, without bringing reproach upon him, you can ever refer with 
pride to the fact that you studied at the University of Georgia during 
the golden administration of Chancellor Hill: It is the earnest hope of 
every true friend of education in this state that his mantle and a double 
portion of his spirit may descend upon his successor. Let us all find 
consolation in the thought that his life was a perpetual benediction 
and his influence a perennial inspiration. 


40 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Mr. Hill’s Relation To The Denominational 
Colleges. 


BY 
DR. JAMES E. DICKEY, PRESIDENT EMORY COLLEGE. 


I come to you with bowed head, bearing a part of the general 
erief that oppresses the hearts of all Georgians today. While I come 
as the son of a sister institution of learning, I beg to assure you that 
my affections are not bounded by even the large limits of her consti- 
tuency, but my heart throbs with constant interest in the fortunes of 
all agencies which are operating for the uplift of my fellow citizens. 

It is needless for me to say, therefore, that as a Georgian, I am 
keenly sensitive to the interests of the University of Georgia, from 
whose classic halls have gone forth so many illustrious soldiers and 
statesmen, immortals, whose fame has become the heritage, not only 
of this commonwealth, but of the great sisterhood of states as well. 
The Cobbs, the Stephens, the Toombses, the Hills, the Hulls, the 
Jacksons and the Gordons, an almost inspired host, “whose names 
are writ where stars are lit.” But of all the names that adorn the 
alumni list of this noble foundation, none are more worthy to be 
cherished with fond remembrance than that of the late loved, and 
lamented Chancellor, Walter B. Hill, of the class of 1870. 

I would have been glad, Mr. Chairman, had it fallen to my lot 
to speak of Mr. Hill as the affectionate husband and father who was 
ever solicitous lest “the winds of heaven should visit too roughly” 
the faces of his beloved wife and children. 

I would be equally pleased, Sir, to speak of him as the conserva- 
tive, yet courageous leader of the temperance hosts of Georgia. He 
had beheld the divine image blasted by the fiend of drink, he had heard 
the plaintive confession of repentant Cassio, as he said: “I have lost 
the immortal part, Sir, of myself, and what remains is bestial. O, 
that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their 
brains!” Amid such visions and such voices, the philanthropic soul 
of Mr. Hill could not keep silence. Neither the menace of political 
parties nor the conservatism of too cautious friends could stay him 
from the conflict, but wherever the temperance fight was fiercest his 
white plume was foremost. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 47 


It would also be a privilege, Mr. Chairman, to be permitted to 
speak of Mr. Hill as a lawyer, for he was an almost ideal practitioner 
of his profession. I cannot refrain from saying that he did not seek 
admission to the bar simply because he believed the practice of law 
to be lucrative. The anticipated fee never engaged a part of his 
thought that should have been exercised upon the legal principles in- 
volved. Anxiety concerning what he should receive for a service was 
never indulged at the expense of such service. His innate love of 
righteousness ever inspired him in the preparation of his plea, for 
there burned, unextinguishably, upon the altar of his heart the fires 
of justice, which were kindled by the hand of God. As such an 
advocate, Mr. Hill was reckoned not only one of the noblest, but one 
of the ablest of his commonwealth. 

Tongues more eloquent than mine; hearts touched with, perhaps, 
a tenderer passion; minds of nobler compass have discussed the fore- 
going phases in the life of our illustrious dead; for me, in part, Mr. 
Chairman, has been reserved as a topic, “The Relation of Mr. Hill to 
Denominational Colleges.” It is almost needless for me to say that 
Mr. Hill was at once an able and a constant apologist of church 
schools. He was an ardent advocate of education because he was a 
patriot; he was an unwavering friend of denominationa! colieges 
because he was a patriot, plus a Christian. 

In discussing this topic, I am led to speak of Mr. Hill first as he 
was related to the general cause of education. In order to understand 
his relation to education we must consider also his relation to the 
state. 

The antecedents of Mr. Hill were such as to beget the most ar- 
dent patriotism. Descending from a royal race of men, who ever 
stood saying to all the world as did the great Brutus to Cassius: “Set 
honor in one eye and death in the other, and we will look on both 
indifferently ; for, let the gods so speed us, as we love the name of 
honor more than we fear death,’—with such an inheritance, he could 
not, I repeat, have been other than a devoted servitor of his cotntry. 
Had he been born a decade earlier, those beautiful gray garments, 
which he so loved to wear, would have been garnished with the rich 
furnishings of war, and, whether or not his shoulders had borne bars 
and stars, his gentle face and brave heart would have been found at 
the front. Arriving at the maturer years of manhood, he came to see 
that the greatest battles of the world were to be fought with brains 


48 . WALTER BARNARD HILL 


instead of bullets. He believed with Geo. William Curtis that the 
educated man ruled the world, and with this renowned author he had 
observed that from the time that Themistocles led the cultured 
Greeks against the Persians at Salamis, until that epochal day when 
Von Moltke marshalled the educated Germans against the chivalry 
of France the disciplined mind had dominated. The same invincible 
power which made sovereign the educated peoples of former genera- 
tions is regnant today. As evidence of this fact, we may pause long 
enough to ask what peoples direct the policies and dominate the 
thought of the world? Not the states and kingdoms of the Romance 
tongues; not the vast empire of the benighted Slav; but Germany, the 
land of science, philosophy dnd religion; England, the worthy off- 
spring of a noble mother, and America, the descendant of both, fos- 
tering with jealous care those forces which make nations great. We 
have also a striking illustration in our own Republic of the power and 
influence of disciplined mind. Mr. John Cabot Lodge, in certain re- 
cent statistics, calls attention to the fact that in five of the great 
Western States within ninety years, only 27 men have been produced 
whose names were thought worthy to be placed in the English and 
American encyclopedias, while in the little state of Massachusetts 
alone, within the same length of time, 2,686 men of note have been 
reared. If the question is asked, where is the center of influence and 
power in America, the response comes readily: not in the South; not 
in the West; but in the New England and Middle States. Do I mean 
to insinuate that the rugged rocks of New England and the stormy 
winds of the Atlantic are more productive of brain tissue than the 
fertile valleys of the West, or the softer breezes of our own South- 
land? I answer no; but because from time immemorial the New 
Itngland and Middle States have given themselves heartily to the 
education of their children. “Education makes man great” is declared 
by Dr. Hillis to be the divine dictum. Horace Mann would probably 
agree with this statement, for he declares that when the English 
government closed the schools to the common people of Ireland 
such action lowered the brow of the Irish peasantry one inch. 

' As a student of history, Mr. Hill was perfectly conversant with 
the foregoing facts; as a patriot, he was unwilling to see the South 
as a timid servant ministering to the mighty; but, with desire, amount- 
ing almost to anguish, he longed to see her take her place among the 
proud sisterhood of states, as the peer of any and the pride of all. 


WALTER BARNARD HILI, 49 


With the vision of a seer, he saw that the proud pre-eminence which 
he so coveted for his section could come to it only by the persistent 
and diligent mental discipline of the young men and women. When, 
therefore, he was called to head the educational forces of Georgia, 
as the Chancellor of the University, notwithstanding the attractions 
to him of his beloved profession, he yielded to the call of his state 
and counted all suffering joy, if haply he might have some part in 
bequeathing to the sons of his Southland broad brows, as becometh 
the sons of Plato. 

It is said that on the eve of the battle of Salamis Aristides, 
who had opposed the naval policy of Themistocles, for which he had 
been banished from Athens, appeared in the council of the Athenian 
chiefs and extending his hand to Themistocles said: “Let our rivalry 
ever be, and particularly at such a moment as this, a generous con- 
tention as to which shall confer the greater benefit on our country.” 
Such was the spirit of Mr. Hill. Sectional prejudice and rivalry had 
wrought havoc with the affectionate ties of the republic; and, while 
his Southland had been ostracised for a season by the stronger section 
that controlled the general government, yet in the hour of awakening 
consciousness to the dominance of mental discipline, that era in 
which antagonistic kingdoms and commonwealths measured mind 
rather than the tonnage of warships and the number of soldiers, at 
such a time as this, Mr. Hill appeared in the council of the great edu- 
cational chieftains of the nation and placing his faithful hand in theirs 
said in the language of Aristides: “Let our rivalry ever be, and par- 
ticularly at such a moment as this, a generous contention as to which 
shall confer the greater benefit on our country.” Such was the sweet 
winsomeness of his petition, such the manly openness of his address that 
sectional lines were forgotten, and he was advanced from local into 
national fame. 

Patriotism, such as I have set forth, inspired Mr. Hill in his ad- 
vocacy of the cause of general education. The same spirit of patriot- 
ism inspired him in his support of church schools. Believing in the 
necessity of mental discipline for the development of states, and 
pleading before God for the uplift of his people as only a patriot 
can pray, he could not but sympathize with and support those institu- 
tions, 1. e. church colleges, which were educating nearly 80 per cent 
of the entire number of collegians in the Southern States. If it were 
a meritorious thing for the State Universities of the South to enroll 


50 WALTER BARNARD HILL 

for purpuses of instruction 7,347 pupils within a year, he believed that 
it was certainly equally meritorious for the church colleges of the South 
to enroll within the same length of time 24,255. While it is true that 
quite a number of the church schools are poorly equipped as compared 
with the more favored state universities, yet many of the former offer 
opportunities equal to those of the noblest foundations of the State. 
I repeat, the same spirit of patriotism, that impelled Mr. Hill to 
renounce the practice of his beloved profession to become the educa- 
tional leader of his State, inspired him to take position as the staunch 
friend of denominational education. I said the late Chancellor was a 
friend of denominational education, because he was a patriot, plus 
a Christion. Education was essential to the development of Caesar’s 
kingdom, and Christian education to that of his Lord’s estate. He 
had heard the command, “Render therefore unto Czesar the things which 
be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s.” As a Chris- 
tian he was the unwavering friend of every force that operated to ad- 
vance the cause of Christ, and he believed firmly that denominational 
colleges were strong allies of his Lord. The majority of the graduates 
of these schools go forth into the world with the spirit of righteous- 
ness intensified by their college associations, while perhaps Io per 
cent of them become missionaries and ministers. It is, of course, well 
understood that the great majority of the graduates among these 
elect servants of God are alumni of church schools. Let it not be 
forgotten that these men have contributed, through their services, as 
much to the cause of civilization as to the cause of Christianity. A 
striking corroboration of this fact is found in the life of that great 
scientist who, lamenting that his spiritual nature, through neglect of 
it, had become atrophied, asked permission to become an annual sub- 
scriber to the cause of Missions, because the missionaries through 
their labors had become pronounced factors in the development of the 
species. As for the ministers of Christ, all the world knows how 
amid prayers and tears they have transformed savages into saints, and 
upon the broad bosom of their faith have lifted whole commonwealths 
into the presence of God. As a Christian, I repeat, Mr. Hill could 
not have been other than a friend of denominational education. We 
are not surprised, therefore, that when he stood before that august 
body of citizens, the General Assembly of Georgia, pleading for larger 
appropriations, in order to make the work of the University more 
effective, he remembered how the state unwisely taxed the meager 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 51 


endowments of the church schools, and looking over that sea of up- 
turned faces cried out with intense passion, “Gentlemen, I pray you, 
do not tax the windows of the soul.” 

Great in his leadership of the educational forces of the State, 
he was great enough to distinguish and to cherish allies of equal 
import. He loved and was beloved by the sisterhood of church col- 
leges in Georgia. But he is gone now, and while we no longer hear 
the tones of his gentle yet inspiring voice; no longer look upon his 
open face; no longer feel the thrill of friendship in his cordial grasp; 
let us remember and rejoice that his frail form bends no more ’neath 
the burdens of state; his beautiful brow is forever unwrinkled by care, 
for the peace which passeth all understanding has become an eternal 
possession and he basks in the smile of his God. 


52 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Mr. Hill’s Relation To The Church. 


BY 


REV. ISAAC S. HOPKINS, D. D., PASTOR METHODIST 
CHURCH, ATHENS. 


Chancellor Walter B. Hill was a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South. In early life he gave his heart to God and took 
upon himself the vows of church membership, and through his entire 
life, private and public, no regret, no relaxation of interest or fervor 
marked any decrease of the devotion of those early years. 

To many men this would be a high and worthy tribute, and 
would express the range of their conception of religious responsibility. 
But to Chancellor Hill it meant infinitely more than merely a formal 
declaration of his alliance with all that was good in human society. 
With him it meant the summing up and the emphatic expression of 
those elements of life that concern “the life that now is and that which 
is to come.” 

As far removed as a man could be from bigotry, he yet found in 
the church of his choice the formulas of faith and the rules of polity 
that best answered the demands of his intellect for the truth concern- 
ing spiritual things. No elaborateness of service, no formality of 
ritual, could replace for him the simplicity of her worship or the charm 
of her service. And yet so broad were his sympathies, so intimate 
and vital were the conceptions of his mind as to the great truths of 
religion, that every place was sacred to him where the name of God 
was honored and men’s souls were bowed in worship. Denominational 
lines were no bars to the catholicity of his spirit, and wherever God’s 
servants were met to offer worship there he could find a sanctuary 
and an altar. 

The charm of his church and religious life was often apparent 
when in the Sunday school and the church services the devoutness of 
his attitude and the simple fervor of his prayers attested how near he 
lived to God and how completely he leaned upon the strong for 
strength. 

But the church was not only to him a haven of rest in the inter- 
vals of his strenuous life. Wearied and worn with frequent journeys, 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 53 


pressed and burdened with herculean tasks, he found rest and refresh- 
ment in her services. And beyond these silent and often pathetic 
tokens of his devotion to his church, his purse was ever open liberally 
to every demand for the support of her institutions and the further- 
ance of her great ‘enterprises. The even balance of his mind, his 
great executive ability, were often laid under tribute to furnish coun- 
sel and direction under circumstances of perplexity and difficulty. And 
to these claims his wisdom and sympathy, so readily accorded, never 
failed to give encouragement and guidance. 

The church was to his conception a field of activity. By pen 
and voice, in addresses and essays, he was ever ready to render such 
service as was demanded of him, and as to the character of this 
service let the hundreds who have listened to his calm, judicious, wise 
words, and who have read the graceful, easy, polished contributions 
from his pen give answer. 

Often and again he was called to the great council of his church 
and entrusted with positions of responsibility and trust. 

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to separate and treat 
distinctively the elements of Chancellor Hill’s church life, apart from 
those elements of his life that have been so feelingly discussed this 
afternoon. In truth, this church life lies at the foundation of all the 
rest, is so interwoven with his labors and his usefulness that they can 
not be separated. His church life rfeant his religious life. It was the 
golden chain that bound together in its gleaming richness all else in 
his wonderfully beautiful character. It was the fountain of living 
water that gushed forth in glad response to every call of his Divine 
Master, the secret spring of all the high esteem in which he was held 
throughout the land, and which causes his name now to be as “an 
ointment poured forth.’ His great devotion to the interests of good 
government, his accessibility to all who needed him, his broad con- 
ception of the educational demands of the time, and the consecration 
of his life to the upbuilding of this great university, traced back, will 
be found to have had their root in the deep religious character of the 
man, of which his church life was only the outward and visible ex- 
pression. 

It is strange how profoundly death changes our estimate of men, 
how it introduces us to a point of view from which we come to regard 
them. While Chancellor Hill was among us we knew him, we trusted 
him, we loved him, we admired him, we watched with interest the 


54 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


plans he inaugurated for the upbuilding of the University, but now 
that he has taken on him the added “dignity of death,” how our hearts 
open to the charm of his blameless, laborious, beautiful life. How 
universal the question, how absorbing the interest, as to who shall 
fill the place made vacant by his death. How that calm face lingers 
in our memory, how peacefully there comes to us the memory of that 
placid exterior with the wealth of wisdom and goodness it enshrined. 
How gratefully we recall the wise counsel and sympathetic interest 
that were ours for the asking. 

We bow to the inscrutable wisdom and goodness of the Father 
of us all. 

We pay this tribute of love and sorrow at the grave of a man who 
was greater than we knew, and who was better than he was great. 
We cherish his memory not only because of the beauty of his charac- 
ter and the greatness of his purpose, but with the hope that to each 
oi us who knew him, and to the young men who were privileged to 
sit under his teaching, there may come a fresh inspiration from that 
life for a character that shall be spotless and deeds that shall be un- 
selfish and noble. ; 

The death of Chancellor Hill was in perfect accord with his life. 
He passed away without a struggle. His life went out like the snuf- 
fing of a candle flame. “God touched his eyelids and he slept.” 

“How blest the righteous when he dies! 
When sinks the weary soul to rest, 
How mildly beam the closing eyes! 
How, gently heaves the expiring breast. 


Life’s duty done, as sinks the clay, 
Light from its load the spirit flies; 
While heaven and earth combine to say, 
“How blest the righteous when he dies!’ ” 


WALTER BARNARD HILL AS 


Letter Of Appreciation From Mr. George 
Foster Peabody.” 


Hon. N. E. Harris, Chairman of Committee of Trustees, Athens, Ga. 

My Dear Mr. Harris:—It is a real grief to me not to be with 
those near and dear to Chancellor Hill on this sacred occasion when 
they gather to make memorial their thought and love of him. I had 
counted upon the privilege of being with you and deemed it a rare 
honor to be asked to voice somewhat our thought of him. It would 
have been less hard to do this on the spot and in the presence of the 
earnest students and loyal associates and the warm friends who gath- 
er there, for one could not but feel in all eyes the touch of intensity 
which every heart present must evidence, of personal consciousness 
of the rare soul that could not die, but will surely be present in a high 
degree in your midst. Inspired by such a consciousness one could 
not but speak words that might deepen in the hearts and illuminate to 
the minds the realization of the nobly human and truly divine person- 
ality with which the great All-Father endowed Walter Barnard Hill, 
whose life among you and in the state which he loved was indeed a 
noble power for up-building and of abounding blessings. 

Our great colony of Georgia was founded by a rare and unique 
soul, James Oglethorpe, whose memory we do well to honor and 
whose life we study in these days with profit and increasing admiration 
for his great wisdom. I cannot but feel that future historians who 
come to study in the.larger perspective the character and public 
service of Walter B. Hill will perceive even more readily than we 
that his name is entitled to rank close beside that of the great Ogle- 
thorpe, than whom no one who founded colonies in America seems to 
ine nobler. 

Our lives are filled with countless blessings of which the greatest 
is that of friendship which quickeneth the soul in every part. I am 
glad to speak of the priceless privilege which it has been to me to have 
attained the confidence and friendship of this great Chancellor of the 
University of Georgia. Only in the most limited circle of those 
most close and dearest to me are any who rank with him in my 


* This letter was read at the memorial exercises by Hon. N. F. 
Harris, Chairman. 


56 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


thought as inspiring me to the best and to reach forward unto the 
highest that I am capable of attaining. . 

There will be many suggestions of his great and comprehensive 
character given to those who gather to do him honor by the distin- 
guished speakers who are with you, but I would like to suggest, 
would that I could really picture, to the mind of those gathered to- 
gether, and of those who may read, yes to all Georgians and to all 
men and women of the Southland, my apprehension of some elements 
of the character of this true man in whom there abounded continually a 
wise love of all his brother-men. I would that I could inspire every 
student to study to know the secret of that peculiar and unwavering 
moral courage which it seems to me was the most notable character- 
istic of Walter B. Hill. Always with consideration for every man and 
tespect for their point of view and all charity, he was ever keen to a 
most extraordinary degree in his perception of the tendency in all of 
us to surrender to the demand of selfishness whether in the nearer 
personal or wider social and political relations of life. He was an 
educator in the true sense, seeking to draw out in all ways that power 
and capacity with which the Creator Father has endowed every 
child of woman. And so we find that the student who lagged behind 
with his work and those whose self-indulgence hindered the develop- 
ment of their character and weakened their will-powers, are of those 
who recall with affectionate enthusiasm their relation to this earnest 
and firm but sympathetic teacher and friend. It seems to me that in a 
peculiar manner, he had gotten hold of the soul of that centuries old 
phrase which calls out the best in us, “Noblesse oblige;’ which the 
Southland had the moral courage to assume to follow after with the 
splendid persistence and unfaltering determination of the Anglo- 
saxon mind. He went steadily forward to apply it in its fullest sense 
to the unique and unexampled conditions with which the life of the 
Southern man and woman has to cope in building up a life of his 
family and his community and common-wealth. He had no fear that 
any harm could come to any man or woman who lived up in sincerity 
and truth to the spirit of love which commands us ever to forget self 
in the fullest sense and give the best that we have to those who most 
have need of that which is entrusted to our stewardship, whether it 
be knowledge or culture, sympathy or grant of power, which latter in 
its due relation is always, not only the extreme test of character, but 
the necessary element from which the highest strength shall be 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 57 


wrought in the development of humanity. His was indeed a true 
Christ-life; a revelation of God and man than which none can be 
nobler or more inspiring. 

He was by nature a poet with a vision, and as I think of him now 
I am reminded of those words of Browning, “A man’s reach should 
exceed his grasp, else what’s a heaven for?” Surely it is easy for us 
on this day, as we recall to mind our latest recollections of him, to 
realize how splendid the reach of his mind was. It will, I think, be 
a fine course for his successor to run to endeavor to grasp and make 
sure of only a part of those great visions of his of which he has left 
record with us and especially those implanted in the hearts and minds 
of those young men, students and alumni of this great University, 
who will I trust, make real to future generations many of those revela- 
tions of what a man may be, which in their intercourse with, and 
knowledge of him, have taken root in their hearts and minds. 

Let us each strive to make true for our time that best evidence of 
the great man, “His works do follow him’’—by following in the path 
made plain by Walter Barnard Hill, who, being dead, still may speak 
to many. 

IT am yours in truest sympathy, 


GEORGE FOSTER PEABODY. 


52 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


A GREAT CITIZEN OF GEORGIA. 
(Dr. Albert Shaw, Editor of Review of Reviews.) 


Like Dr. Harper, of Chicago, Chancellor Hill, of Georgia, did 
not belong merely to a locality or a State, but ranked high among the 
men who live and work upon the national plane. In a time when 
there prevails some pessimism about the relative uprightness and 
ability of those who hold positions of leadership, it is helpful and 
reassuring to know and understand such men as the late head of the 
University of Georgia. In professional ability he measured up to the 
full stature of the great lawyers and jurists whose names are cher- 
ished among members of the American bar. As a leader of public 
opinion his purity of motive and his moral courage never failed. As 
an educational chieftain his authority and power were growing every 
day, and his achievements were substantial and permanent. If he had 
lived five years longer his popular reputation would have been as 
wide as the country. But he was well known among men of leader- 
ship everywhere, and was held in such esteem by those who knew 
him that their words of confidence and approbation were always with- 
out stint or limit. 

Walter Barnard Hill was born in Georgia in September, 1851, 
and was, therefore, in his fifty-fifth year when pneumonia claimed him 
as a victim, on the 28th of December, 1905. His collegiate educa- 
tion and his legal studies were pursued in his native State, and by the 
time he was twenty-two years old he was practicing law in associa- 
tion with the Hon. Nathaniel E. Harris, one of his own college friends, 
in the city of Macon. Mr. Hill had fully revealed as a student his fine 
intellectual talents and his lofty moral qualities; so that the usefulness 
and distinction which afterward came to him were confidently ex- 
pected by his instructors and those who knew him. He honored the 
bar of Georgia, and received all the honors of the profession in return. 
Hie served as president of the State bar association, helped again and 
again to revise the legal code of the State, made brilliant addresses 
hefore legal bodies elsewhere in the country, and, in short, was every- 
thing in influence and example that a great lawyer ought to be to his 
State as well as to his profession. 

Being of a scholarly nature and habit, and himself a graduate of 
the State University, it was not strange that when there came a va- 
cancy in the chancellorship, in 1899, he should have been called to 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 59 


fill the position. It involved a sacrifice for him to give up the active 
practice of the law, but what was a loss in some respects was more 
than offset by an increased opportunity for public service; and view- 
ing the matter in this light, Dr. Hill accepted the position. The prin- 
cipal seat of the University of Georgia is in the beautiful city of 
Athens, than which there could hardly be a more delightful educa- 
tional center. But the university as a corporate whole includes not 
only the academic institutions located at Athens, but also State agri- 
cultural colleges, the normal schools, and other institutions of learn- 
ing under the control of the State and located elsewhere. If there are 
clear advantages in a unified control of a series of scattered State 
institutions, there are also obvious difficulties involved, and Chancellor 
Hill brought rare talent and perseverance to the harmonizing of the 
educational life and work of the State of Georgia. 

Under his influence there has been great growth, and he has been 
called to lay down his work at the very moment when it seemed to 
him possible to achieve within the next ten years a great part of his 
laudable ambition to make the University of Georgia one of the very 
foremost of the State universities of America. He had visited the 
great universities of the Northwest, notably the University of Wis- 
consin, and had studied the public-school systems of the upper Missis- 
sippi Valley also, with a view to promoting every department of edu- 
cational work in his own great commonwealth. He had taken a lead- 
ing part in the movement for improving rural common schools, and 
extending to localities the power to tax themselves, as in the North, 
for their elementary schools. He had also taken a prominent part 
in the defeat of the suggestion of a division of school funds between 
the two races in the proportion of the amounts contributed by each. 
No man could have been more truly representative of the best South- 
ern thought, and no one could have brought to the study of the race 
problem a kinder spirit or a more just and reasonable view. 

There were not a few of us in the North who were always ready 
to say, with respect to a given question of opinion or a problem of 
policy, that it was quite sufficient to ascertain what Dr. Hill thought 
would be right with respect to matters concerning his own region, 
and then to accept his views as the basis for a working policy. Many 
men in the North had become personally acquainted with Dr. Hill 
through his connection with the Southern Education Board and its 
efforts to promote educational advancement in the Southern States. 


60 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


These men appreciated Dr. Hill as fully as did his own fellow-citizens 
of Georgia. His public addresses were strong in logic, convincing in 
their moderation and fairness, delightful in their intellectual qualities, 
and memorable for their flashes of wit and humor. 

A great and good man has passed away at the very time when 
he seemed most indispensable in his own State, and when men of other 
States having large affairs committed to them were most anxiously 
relying upon his sound judgment and untiring co-operation. Yet he 
had already done enough to make his life one long to be remembered 
and his mature opinions are available for the guidance of those who 
have to carry on the University of Georgia, as well as for the benefit 
of his associates in other educational and public undertakings. The 
best possible tribute that can be paid to his lifelong and unselfish ser- 
vice of his fellow-men will be the bold and unhesitating adoption by 
the !egislature and the people of the State of Georgia of his plans for 
the enlarged support and development of the educational work of the 
State in all grades. His memory, furthermore, like that of the late 
Dr. Curry, can always be invoked when there may be danger that good 
men of the North and good men of the South may slightly misunder- 
stand one another in spite of the fact that they are all striving toward 
the same ends of human progress. 


* © % 


A BRAVE LEADER. 
(Editorial in The Outlook, Jan. 6th, 1906.) 


The South lost one of its bravest and sanest leaders last week. 
Chancellor Walter B. Hill, of the University of Georgia, was eminent 
among the men whose services to the Nation have been invaluable dur- 
ing these years of reunion. Born in 1851, too late to participate in 
the war, and yet early enough to know the humiliation that followed 
the triumph of Northern armies, he knew, as men older and men 
vounger than he were not likely to know, how deep was the pit out 
of which the South had patiently to drag herself. Trained for the 
law, he became six years ago the head of the University of which he 
was a graduate. During these six years he has been far more than a 
college president; he has been a trainer of the public conscience, an 
advocate of popular education, an interpreter to the North of the 
ideals of the South, a happy and energetic contributor to the process 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 61 


by which for a generation the nation has been finding itself as a 
nation. The service he rendered through the Southern Education 
Board has been invaluable. He had a style distinguished for clear- 
ness, and he wrote and spoke with a humor which is too rare among 
men who recognize, as he did, the seriousness of the problems at 
which they are working. His death, in middle age, is a severe loss 
to those forces which, in spite of a surviving unlovely sectionalism, 
are putting the best qualities of all sections to the nation’s use. 


*¥ e 


CHANCELLOR HILL ENTERS INTO REST. 
(Hon. John Temple Graves, Editor, in Atlanta News, Dec. 28th, 1905.) 


A shadow has fallen upon the university, and the chancellor of 
our highest institution, enshrined in the love and gratitude of a great 
people, lies with folded hands above a finished work and has doubtless 
received ere this in heaven the plaudits which his little world has 
rendered of “well done.” 

We said on yesterday, beside the dying couch of Walter B. Hill, 
that which was in our hearts about him yesterday, today and for all 
the year. 

The first citizen of the state is not always he who stands in official 
robes with the trappings of office and the ceremonials of state about 
him. Not governors, nor senators, nor members of congress, nor 
railroad magnates, nor the men with princely wealth, but the stainless 
citizen, working with great brain and noble purpose along unselfish 
lines to the highest common good, and pulsing upon his lips and in 
his life the beautiful culture and the beautiful character which he 
preached to the youth of the State. 

The chancellor of the University of Georgia, if he be a man built 
along the noble lines of Walter B. Hill, is easily the first citizen of 
the State. And the State today, in the full and noble consciousness 
of its incomparable loss, stands with uncovered head beside the bier 
of its foremost citizen and renders him the tribute of its grateful and 
tender tears. 

A life like that of Walter Hill is a lesson to these times and a 
model to all the youth of Georgia. 

Fifty-four years of life have been lived without a stain along 


62 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


every high and noble line of brave endeavor. Courage and gentle- 
ness have typed the union of his convictions with his manner. With 
gentleness of speech and softness of manner, there has ever been a 
lion’s courage in the mind of Walter Hill that sent him swiftly and 
unfearingly to his brave conclusions upon every theme that touched 
his church, his state and his fellowmen. He has not at any time fol- 
lowed truckling and time-serving in the wake of public opinion. But 
without bravado and without defiance has followed the ranks simply, 
resolutely and fearlessly behind his convictions and followed wherever 
they led. 


Out of touch at times with the dominant party and the majority 
sentiment of his state upon public questions, it is at least the crowning 
glory of the life which ended yesterday that not one among all those 
who differed with his views and protested his convictions, has ever 
been found to question the integrity of his convictions, nor the stain- 
less beauty of his motives and his mind. He has carried through dif- 
ference and advance in thought the unbroken and unquestioned con- 
fidence of his fellow men. And whatever cause has held him among 
its advocates has been glorified and strengthened by the common con- 
cession of his own superb and stainless honesty. 

It was fitting above all things that such a man should have been 
called from the working ranks to become the model and exemplar of 
our Georgia youth. He embodied in his life all the high codes of 
religion and of the morals which he preached upon the platform and 
inculcated in the class room. He furnished to the youth of Georgia 
an object lesson of the beauty and the integrity and dignity of his 
pure and honest life. He elevated the tone of the University of Geor- 
gia to a status second to nothing in the republic. The force of his 
life, the beauty of his character, and the clearness and culture of his 
mind were growing day by day upon the educational life and pur- 
poses of the state and of the republic. Everywhere, in state and na- 
tional gatherings, his influence grew, and it is nothing less than logi- 
cal and true to say that this influence would have grown and expanded 
with the advancing years, and that if Walter B. Hill had lived to the 
crown of silver years, he would have stood shoulder to shoulder with 
the dominant and noble figures which stand for education in this land 
today. 

The last and crowning service of Walter B. Hill has been rendered 
to the University of Georgia, and to the youth who are the present 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 63 


and future riches of the state. He lies yonder in that classic city, far 
removed from the angry strife of factions and the fierce competition 
of the age, shrined in the love and gratitude of a great people, and he 
himself, if his still lips could shape one further word, would send back 
to a stern and pulsing world, the high and brave testimony that he has 
lived the life that is best worth living, and died the death which is the 
noblest that can come to man. 

Peace to the ashes of the useful citizen, the stainless gentleman 
and the triumphant Christian of the state. 


% oo 


CHANCELLOR HILL’S DEATH. | 
(Hon. Clark Howell, Editor, in Atlanta Constitution, Dec. 29th, 1905.) 


There is sadness throughout the length and breadth of Geor- 
gia today, and the joy of Christmas has been turned into mourning. 

Chancellor Walter B. Hill, of the University of Georgia, is dead. 

The end came like lightning out of a clear sky. But a few days 
ago this distinguished Georgian was in his wonted good health and 
spirits, full of his characteristic enthusiasm in carrying out the high 
ideals he had made his life mission. A cold rapidly developed into the 
treacherous malady known as grip, and with equal rapidity that dread 
disease pneumonia developed. Death came almost as men lie down 
at night and fall asleep. 

A great and noble spirit has passed from among us. Georgia 
has lost a life-force that was a potent part of her higher civic inspira- 
tion. The dead chancellor of her university was one of those rare 
souls who lend initiative and intelligent execution to the latent ethical 
impulse of a people. He was a leader of men in that loftier sphere 
of leadership—the spiritual. His mind was large and broad, but his 
heart-aspirations were larger and broader. He possessed the uni- 
versal heart, which feels for all men and understands all men. As 
gentle as a woman in his nature and association with his fellows, he 
viewed humanity with the same gentleness that made his daily life 
beautiful. His purpose in life was the consecrated purpose of human 
upliftment, and he regarded education as a means to that end. 

When Chancellor Hill came to the University of Georgia that 
institution and the cause of education in Georgia needed a new 


64 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


spiritual quickening. A man was needed whose purity of nature and 
magnetism of spirit, coupled with a mastery of mind, could touch to 
generous action the better qualities in others—in the mass. Such a 
inan is one among ten thousand, and he comes of God to bless his 
generation. Such a man was Walter Barnard Hill. He injected new 
life into the University of Georgia. What that noble institution is 
today is in no small measure attributable to the singleness of purpose, 
the untiring energy, the splendid executive ability, the contagious en- 
thusiasm, the spiritual poise of Chancellor Hill. Where it was run 
down he built it up. Where its glories were but memories he restor- 
ed them to virile, pulsing, existing realities. He gave the old Uni- 
versity a verve, and esprit de corps that it had not known since the 
days of its ante-bellum greatness. He helped largely to make it one 
among the few great educational institutions of the nation today. 

And Chancellor Hill did more than this for the cause of education 
in Georgia. The magnetic force of his personality: and his personal 
efforts went far to awaken a new interest in education in every coun- 
ty in the state. The great strides made by Georgia in this direction 
during the past decade were a part of his general educational pro- 
paganda. and thousands of the youth of the state, the majority of 
whom have never seen the University of Georgia or Chancellor Hill, 
ewe him a debt of gratitude for the influence he constantly exerted 
before the people on public occasions, before the legislature, in the 
church and in the private home and business office, in behalf of better 
things educationally. Moreover, he helped to create a new and more 
fraternal spirit among our educators themselves, helping to make an 
aggressive unit for the noble cause their profession seeks to advance. 

It is difficult to see how Chancellor Hill’s place is to be filled. 
But we will leave that, with hope and faith, for the future. Today, 
with bowed heads and sore hearts in the presence of the noble dead, 
we can only pray Heaven’s rest to the great soul fled. | 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 65 


HON. WALTER B. HILL AS A TEMPERANCE ADVOCATE. 
(Mrs. W. H. Felton, in the Atlanta Journal, Jan. 24th, 1906.) 


The laudatory comments of the Georgia press in regard to the 
life and character of Hon. Walter Barnard Hill have been many. The 
good things said of him are eminently well deserved, because he was 
emphatically a noble, cultured, Christian gentleman and Georgia is 
proud of his work and all Georgia mourns his demise along with his 
family and friends. 

His work as a lawyer has been well stated, also his work as a 
popular educator, but I have seen less said of his great work in the 
cause of prohibition than of either of the other two. I have also no 
doubt but he is dearer to the public heart because of his zeal for sober 
homes and the protection of the state and nation from the liquor evil 
than for all his other public work besides. He gave the best years of 
his useful life to the temperance work. He never faltered in its advocacy, 
even when it meant open antagonism to the politics of his best friends 
in every other line of thought and endeavor in public life. He was 
staunch and steadfast when it meant to him constant defeat at the 
polls. He never used his advocacy of prohibition as a stepping stone 
to political preferment. He sought no office thereby, although he was 
known to be an ideal candidate for governor or for any other position 
in the gift of the people. He simply stood for the right,and accepted 
defeat as a noble hero in the strife. To him, perhaps more than to any 
other speaker known to Georgia, is due the advance the state has 
made in temperance within the last quarter of a century. 

Nobody could ever mistake his position. No matter how the bat- 
tle waged, Walter B, Hill could always be placed in the forefront in 
the struggle for home protection from the liquor evil. He contended 
alone for the right and openly stood alone when political parties 
swerved to the right or left by reason of political expediency or desire 
for office. 

His was a heroic figure, and, as one who occasionally reasoned 
with the people for better living and better homes from the same 
rostrum, his glorious endeavor was never dimmed or tarnished be- 
fore my mind’s eye. He was the least self-seeking of all our public 
speakers—never intolerant, always gentle and courteous to his op- 
ponents, always faithful to his convictions of duty, and always appear- 


66 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


ing as the consecrated servant of the Most High as he reasoned of 
righteousenss, temperance and the judgment to come. 

My words in this connection seem so tame in comparison with my 
feeling on the subject. JI wish I had the poetic gift to sing his praises 
as I would be glad to do, when I am so filled with a keen sense of 
personal loss and bereavement in his death. 

I am saying these things perhaps for the last time in remember- 
ance of this “Great Heart” of our temperance cause and the places 
that he filled with so much honor will know him no more forever, but 
the women and children of Georgia should keep his memory green in 
all time to come, because his service was so graciously, unselfishly, 
nobly and conscientiously bestowed for the good of his countrymen 
and because he felt it was the direction of a Higher Power. 

It was a privilege to listen to his addresses in behalf of pronibi- 
tion. His noble, calm, placid features were never distorted by heat or 
anger against the opposition—and yet he plead as if pleading for the 
life of an immortal soul before the bar of justice, in his loving 
earnestness for the protection of the home life of the innocent and 
helpless among us. ° 

I add this tribute to the many that are filling our newspapers, 
conscious of my inability to portray the picture as I know and under- 
stand it; but it goes forth along with others and with my profoundest 
respect and undying esteem for Mr. Hill’s great work everywhere for 
(God and humanity. 


* & % 


DEATH OF CHANCELLOR WALTER B. HILL. 
(Editorial in Augusta Chronicle, December 29th, 1905.) 


In the death of Chancellor Walter B. Hill Georgia loses one of 
its most prominent and gifted citizens, the State University an incom- 
parable head, and his family and friends suffer an irreparable loss. 
In short, the passing of this gentle, but determined spirit, whose every 
earnest effort was for the good of the commonwealth, is a blow to the 
whole state of Georgia. | 

As an attorney, author, orator and educator, his success was re- 
markable, and as the Chancellor of the State University, the adviser 
and director of the youths who as men will be the leaders of their 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 57 


fellows and the legislators for their state, his high-minded spirit and 
remarkable personal magnetism were of incalculable benefit to the 
various classes that came under the sway of his broad philosophy and 
ennobling ideals. 

When elected first to this position his friends in Macon, who 
foresaw a brilliant career ahead of him in his chosen profession of 
the law, tried to persuade him to refuse it, but, fortunately for all 
concerned, he accepted the arduous task, in which his labors counted 
most for humanity at large, and under his supervision the State Uni- 
versity has thriven as never before, and he has made valuable friends 
for it abroad, who had never previously heard its name. 

Walter Barnard Hill was born in Talbotton, Ga., September 9, 
1851, and was, therefore, 54 years of age when he folded his hands 
in sleep. He was a son of Judge Barnard Hill and Mary Clay Birch 
Hill. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1870 and from 
the University Law School in 1871 with the degree of A. M. Emory 
honored him with the degree of LL. D., in 1899, as did the South- 
western Presbyterian University in the same year. He practiced law 
in Macon from 1871 to 1899, when he became chancellor of the Uni- 
versity of Georgia. 

Chancellor Hill’s literary productions consisted of a compilation 
of the Code of Georgia from 1873 to 1882, Memoirs of the Western 
and Atlantic R. R., and Memoirs of the General Conference of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church South, 1886 to 1894, and other ethical 
and legal works. 

In 1888 he was. president of the Georgia Bar Association, of 
which, at the time of his death, he was a member, as well as of the 
American Bar Association, of whose committee on judicial adminis- 
tration he was once chairman, and a trustee of Vanderbilt University. 

He was a very eloquent man, with that clean-cut diction and 
choice verbiage that marks so definitely education and culture, while 
his legal practice had given him the custom of summing up from his 
premises that was very convincing to his hearers. 

Altogether, Georgia has lost a great, a good and a gentle man— 
one whose place it will be hard to fill and whose labors in the cause 
of education will bear fruit for long, long years to come. 


68 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


DEATH OF CHANCELLOR HILL. 
(Editorial in the Macon News.) 


The whole state mourns the death of Chancellor Walter B. Hill, 
of the University of Georgia. The heart of the commonwealth sor- 
rows over his untimely demise. Christianity never had a higher 
illustration; humanity never had a sincerer sympathizer; education 
never had a truer friend; civilization never had a nobler example. 

Walter B. Hill possessed the esteem and respect of all who knew 
him. No man could say aught against him. His life was pure as a 
stream of autumn sunset. We have never known a better man, a 
more conscientious man, a more upright man, or a man who has lived 
so free of adverse criticism. In fact, we have never heard an unkind 
word spoken of Walter B. Hill, and no living being has ever heard 
Walter B. Hill speak unkindly of any creature. To our opinion, he 
represented the sum of human excellence. We believe that he has 
passed through the portals of heaven without one spot upon his 
earthly record. 

He always found pleasure in doing acts of mercy, charity, and 
kindness. Many persons have been the happy recipients of his beney- 
olence. It was ever a joy to him to bind rainbow-hopes around the 
darkest despair. He was a philanthropist, without ostentation; a 
humanitarian, without display. | 

Mr. Hill was a man of the broadest culture, and highest learning. 
He was a deep thinker and a profound reasoner, and yet his mind had 
a wealth of poetic fancy, and he could clothe his thoughts in the most 
beautiful language. His soul was filled with sentiment and pathos. 
He was noted as a speaker and lecturer, and was distinguished as a 
lawyer and educator. Mr. Hill has made innumerable addresses on 
religious, moral and educational topics, and when an active practi- 
tioner at the bar often delivered essays on subjects appertaining to 
the profession. He was the author of several notable works. His 
contributions to literature were of the highest order of merit. His 
pen has brightened the pages of the leading magazines of the country, 
and has illuminated a multitude of literary articles in other publica- 
tions. The creations of his genius were bright, instructive, and enter- 
taining. As a public speaker he was strong, eloquent, and popular. 


in his convictions and sincere in his conclusions, and always origi- 
nal and interesting. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 69 


Under his Christian and wise administration, the University has 
enjoyed an era of great advancement, progress, prosperity, and use- 
fulness. Though the Chancellor is dead, his influence for the better- 
ment and elevation of mankind survives him. He has left a name 
which Georgians long shall cherish, and generations yet unborn shall 
praise. 


” % & 


CHANCELLOR HILU’S DEATH. 
(7. W. Reed, in Editorial in the Athens Banner.) 


As knightly as the royal Arthur, and as pure as Galahad in 
search of the Holy Grail, Chancellor Walter B. Hill, answering the 
summons of the Master, has gone 

“To the island-valley of Avilion; 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly.” 

Living, he consecrated his life to the service of his people, and, 
through the noble qualities of mind and heart that stamped him as 
the foremost citizen of the state, he gave to Georgia youth a deeper 
meaning and a higher inspiration. Dead, while yet his great plans 
were but unfolding and the people of his native commonwealth were 
iust beginning to realize the magnitude of his services, he is enshrined 
in their hearts forever. 

The loss to the city, the state and the entire country is irreparable. 
Other men may come who may do the work he commenced, but years 
will intervene before the thread of action that was snapped when God 
called him hence is taken up again. He was in every way fitted for 
the position of supreme importance that he held, and to the discharge 
of his duties as such he brought an ability surpassed by no educator 
in the South. The youth of Georgia will miss his guiding hand and 
his shining example, but still may emulate his virtues and embody in 
their lives the traits that made him one of nature’s noblemen. 

The loss to family and personal friends passes beyond that which 
is felt by the people of the state in a public sense. To them it is a 
crushing blow, a grief that time alone will assuage. 

No gentler spirit dwelt beneath the breast of man than that which 
answered at the great white throne yesterday at the summons of the 


7O WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Master. His memory will be cherished by those who loved him and 
in the years to come, long after his body has returned to the dust of 
his native state, his name will be among those whom future Georgians 
will delight to honor for the enduring good they have accomplished. 

Within the soil of the state that gave him birth and to whose 
pbuilding he gave his wealth of mind and heart, the mortal frame of 
Chancellor Hill soon will rest. Above the new-made mound sweet 
flowers will be placed by tender hands in tribute to the gentle and 
the good, and with the lengthening shadows of the evening there will 
fall upon the hearts of all the benediction of his stainless life. 

God gave him to the world that by his upright life his people 
might be blessed; He sanctified his efforts to uplift mankind and in 
His own good time will bring them to their full fruition. In the 
solemn hour of parting, faith tells us that there is no death and in 
the full assurance that we can clasp his hand again, we say in fond 
farewell, 

“Good night, sweet prince, 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” 


Do 
+ 
+ 


% 


THE STATE OF GEORGIA MOURNS. 
(Dr. W. C. Lovett, Editor Wesleyan Christian Advocate.) 


On December 28th, at 3:10 a. m., Chancellor Walter B. Hill, 
LL.D., of the State University, breathed his last at his home in 
Athens, Ga. Dr. Hill was sick only a few days. He was taken with 
lagrippe which rapidly turned into pneumonia, and despite the skillful 
and heroic treatment of his physicians, the last enemy seized and 
claimed him. Walter Barnard Hill was born in Talbotton, Georgia, 
September 9, 1851. He was graduated from the State University in 
£870, and from the law school of the University in 1871. 

For a number of years he gave himself to the practice of law, 
and was acknowledged to be one of the most learned lawyers in the 
State. His success in his profession was unusual, but in 1899 he 
was called to the Chancellorship of his alma mater. Entering upon 
his duties there—duties so different from the profession he had 
chosen early in life—many of his most ardent friends and admirers 
feared that a change of occupation at his age in life was not the 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 71 


wisest. But in the new field of labor he easily and speedily disarmed 
all fears of his success, and was recognized throughout the country 
as one of its leading educators. | 

Dr. Hill was a man of decided literary gifts and acquirements. 
He was an author of several volumes of books, both of a professional 
and literary character, and these attest a clearness of mental discern- 
ment, and an accuracy and charm of expression not usual even among 
those who have given themselves entirely to strictly literary work. 

As aman, Dr. Hill was of a high type. Well poised, investigating 
carefully before a conclusion was reached, when he decided, no threats 
of danger or allurements of reward could shake him from his con- 
victions. He was a pronounced prohibitionist and despite the warn- 
ings of his political friends, he fearlessly assailed the sale and use 
of liquor as a beverage, and did much to secure the present wide- 
spread temperance sentiment in Georgia. 

Chancellor Hill early gave himself to God, and united with the 
Methodist church, and though modest and always unobtrusive, his 
brethren readily recognized his worth and gave him a prominent place 
both in the councils and work of the church. He was good. He 
loved God, unblushingly announced on appropriate occasions his 
allegiance to Him, and sought to bring men into the kingdom of 
Christ. 

Learned lawyer, incorruptible citizen, successful educator, and 
stainless follower of Jesus Christ, a great state, a great church hon- 
ored him living, and mourn him gone. 

Our young men should strive to follow the example of this illus- 
trious servant of God, and friend of man. 


a a 


CHANCELLOR WALTER B. HILL. 
(Editorial in the Atlanta Journal, December 28th, 1905.) 


In the death of Walter B. Hill the state loses one of its most 
valuable citizens—a man of keen intellect and of the purest character. 

Chancellor Hill was rich both in the riches of the heart and the 
riches of the intellect. He had an attractive personality which not 
only made friends, but which “grappled them to him with hooks of 
steel.” 


Fie WALTER BARNARD HILL 


In 1899 he became chancellor of the University of Georgia, a 
position he filled up to the time of his death with the most conspicu- 
ous success. It is difficult to calculate how far the influence of a man 
over young men in the formative period of their existence may not 
extend—how many lives it may influence, directly and indirectly, for 
the better. Chancellor Hill impressed upon the young men of Georgia 
much of his own character. He was occupied in the work of turning 
out good citizens, and his value to the state in that capacity was 
incalculable. 

Although but 54 years old when he died, Chancellor Hill, if his 
span on earth is to be measured by his various activities, and its value 
to his fellow-men, enjoyed a singularly well-rounded career. His life 
and example are worthy of emulation by the youth of the state. 


Ke ok 
%~ «& 


MR. HILL AT MERCER. 
(Dr. A. J. Battle, in the Atlanta Constitution.) 


The law department of Mercer University was established soon 
after I was called to the presidency of that institution. It was organ- 
ized by the election of Hon. Barnard Hill, the father of the late 
chancellor, chairman of the faculty and the Hon. Clifford Anderson 
and Walter B. Hill, professors of departments. 

I do not recall the period of time in which Mr. Hill served, but 
it is my impression that his service and mine ran through the same 
number of years. I have a vivid impression of the young man when 
he first appeared before his class, a mere boy in appearance, a strong 
man in his power of thought and his grasp of profound problems. 

He impressed me as worthy to sit with the greatest of jurists, 
with Jay and Marshall, and the most learned and distinguished of 
their successors who have honored the ermine in the greatest court 
in the world. 

As a writer and speaker, he was graceful and strong; as a patriot, 
lie was loyal, courageous and clean; as a man, he was kind, just and 
brave; as the model Christian, he was humble, consistent and true. 

Though dead, he yet speaketh, and will continue to influence his 
generation by his singularly just and pure life. 

With many thousands of citizens of Georgia, and with his noble 
wife, I deeply mourn his death. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 73 


WALTER B. HILL. 
(Hon. P. A. Stovall, Editor Savannah Press, December 28th, 1905.) 


The death of Hon. Walter B. Hill removes a noble man from his 
work in Georgia. And such a work! 

A little more than five years ago he was induced by the trustees 
to go to the head of the state college at Athens. His decision was 
awaited with the greatest interest. At that time he was a lawyer in _ 
successful practice, the member of a prosperous and popular Macon 
firm. The bar had been singled out as his life work. With decided 
taste for literature and with leanings for the lyceum, with his life 
already measured by lofty standards and dominated by a great moral 
issue, he nevertheless had prospered in the active practice of his 
chosen profession. At this time of life to leave this work was to 
abandon it forever, to drop all idea of a political and judicial career, 
to put aside the fees and prizes of the courts and to spend the remain- 
cer of his days in the classic groves where success was uncertain and 
emoluments were few. 

Without hesitation Walter Hill acceded to the wishes of the 
state. He went to Athens and took up the exacting place of chancel- 
lor, a work which in the opinion of many distinguishes the highest 
office in the state. While his elder brothers were earning riches and 
winning laurels in the more active fields of life, he obeyed their call, 
and in his own language “Went back to keep the old homestead, 
where once a year the family gathered in reunion to bless his efforts.” 
Never was a scion more faithful to the trust. He put the house in 
order and welcomed the young manhood of Georgia. He gave it an 
air of culture and charm which it had not had for many years. He 
organized the alumni of Georgia, he presented the claims of the 
University with so much ability at home and abroad that the old insti- 
tution took on a vitality and a glory which argued well for future 
success. He was just the man for the task. He did not confine him- 
self to the study hall, or lecture room. While his scholarship was 
ripe and abundant and his example shining and stimulating, he went 
out among the people, addressed the educators of the country, aroused 
the dormant legislature to renewed efforts and practical support. He 
invested the centennial celebration of the University of Georgia with 
the deepest interest and persuaded the alumni to subscribe liberally 
for the campus extension. Wherever the University was assailed he 


74. WALTER BARNARD HILL 


carried the lance with poise and valor against its enemies. What a 
glorious sight to see a man like Walter Hill defending interests like 
these with such high purpose and splendid ability! He wore himself 
mut in the service of his alma mater. He dedicated his life to higher 
education, and the universities of America lose a champion and exem- 
plar, for he had already made a national reputation. It will be hard 
to fill his place in Georgia, but this work has already borne choicest 
fruit. The state is richer and the world is better because of the life 
of such a man. Among the alumni of Georgia today there is mourn- 
ing. 
Surely “to live in the hearts of those we love is not to die.” 


“ % % 


CHANCELLOR W. B. HILL. 
(Prof. J. S. Stewart, in Educational Department, Atlanta Journal.) 


Last Friday’s papers brought the news of the death of Mr. Hill. 
As chancellor he held the foremost place in the educational work of 
the state and a position unsurpassed in importance and usefulness by 
any in the gift of the state. Mr. Hill in every way measured up to 
the full requirements of the responsible position. As a scholar, an 
orator, an executive, a leader, a writer and a man, he was the peer 
of any of the illustrious men who have held the position of chancellor 
during the century since the founding of the University. During 
the six years he was chancellor he more than doubled the number of 
buildings, the enrollment and income of the institution. In fact, the 
University made more progress during his administration than during 
the preceding fifty years. The academic building, the dining hall, 
Candler hall, biological hall, chemistry hall, and library were all erected 
during his administration and the campus was enlarged from a plot 
of 37 acres to a splendid area of over 500 acres, on which are over fifty 
buildings. He lived to see this area mapped and the plans for its develop- 
ment outlined by the most skillful landscape gardener in America. 
The last day he was in his office we were standing together looking 
over the new map, six by twelve feet, tracing the beautiful drives, the 
locations for numerous new buildings, the extensive athletic field, the 
farm area, the Y. M.-C. A. hall, and he said: “Here is an ideal plan 
to which the University can build for a hundred years, as did the old 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 75 


cathedral builders.” It is a great thing to develop plans and ideals 
towards which a great state can grow for a century. While these 
material evidences of his work are manifest to even the casual ob- 
server, his work was no less great and far-reaching on the spiritual 
side. He knit together the several parts of our educational system. 
Common schools, high schools, private schools, sectarian schools and 
the colleges of the state were thought of by him as related parts and 
he was interested in the growth and success of all. Nor did he con- 
ime his labors to Georgia. The entire South felt the influence of 
his constructive mind. The simple purity of his life, the high ideals 
that inspired him, the steadfastness of his character, the perfect gen- 
tleman that he was, drew young and old to him and there was no 
youth who came under his instruction but was the better for having 
known him. To be and to know were first with him, to have was a 
secondary matter. He set a new standard of university ethics in 
Georgia and showed to even the most narrow, that the influence of a 
state institution was for the highest good. He was true in word and 
life to the Master Teacher and “‘the truth that makes us free.” Sincere 
in every fiber of his being, he was a true friend. I loved him as I did 
no other man, and his death is a great personal loss. He left his work 
so well planned and organized that those who are left behind will be 
able to carry forward these to their realization. Through doubt and 
discouragement, through indifference and opposition, he guided the 
destinies of the University and never faltered but “held the rudder 
mprde:: 

Fortunate are those who knew him; blessed is the institution 
which he guided, happy is the state which he served. 

He was 


“One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward ; 
Never doubted clouds would break ; 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph ; 
Held we fall to rise; are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake.” 


79 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


IN MEMORIAM. 
(Editorial in The Georgian, the University Magazine.) 


The eulogies are now all said, the words of praise, of kindness, 
and of love, are now all spoken. The flowers, which were placed, in 
their sweet beauty, upon the newly upturned sod, under which the 
mortal remains of Walter B. Hill now rest, lie there withered and 
sere, as though mutely mourning for the departed dead. 

And, truly, a great and good man has fallen; great, in breadth 
of view, liberality of mind, and versatility of talent; and good, in 
charity of soul, sweetness of heart, and nobility of character. 
Withal, he was modest in his greatness and gracious in his goodness. 
Chancellor Hill possessed, in his frail body, an indomitable will, an 
unerring mind, and a beautiful soul. 

One wiho knew him exceedingly well, who had been closely asso- 
ciated with him in college, and, later on, in the pursuit of their chosen 
profession, made a remark before the late Chancellor’s death, which 
any man, however illustrious his deeds, would be proud to have as 
his epitaph: “Walter Hill,” said he, “is the wisest man in Georgia. 
He possesses, to an extraordinary degree, the God-given faculty of 
perceiving the truth, wherever it is found, and of holding to the truth, 
whatever it may cost.” 

Nowhere had our dead Chancellor displayed this quality of wis- 
dom in a more striking manner than in the matter, on the altar of 
which he sacrificed his life, the matter of the upbuilding of the Uni- 
versity, the extension of its campus, the expansion of its means and 
powers for training and ennobling the young men of Georgia. He 
found no great college in the South, no great center of knowledge, 
culture, and thought. Why then, pondered he, should not the Univer- 
sity of Georgia occupy this exalted position? He felt that new life 
was entering into the veins of the devitalized South. The old wounds 
were fast healing, chiefly because of the wealth which fields and 
forests were pouring forth. Why then, pondered he still further, 
should not the University of Georgia attain its greatness along the 
lines of agriculture and forestry? 

The thought always uppermost in Mr. Hill’s mind was that his 
college must be the greatest in the South, without shame to be com- 
pared with any that the North or West might boast. And to this end 
he toiled and suffered, and for this end he died. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL “7 


But what boots it now to talk of this, when the fact so strongly 
stares us in the face, that he whose mind planned, whose hand execu- 
ted these many and noble plans for the glory of our college and the 
honor of our State, has been taken from us, never to be recalled? 
The sweet nature that made all men his friends, the bright humor that 
was always bubbling up, are now no more. The keen, unerring eye 
tor truth and right is closed forever. The brilliant mind which was 
sc apt to show itself in eloquent speech, the soul so full of Christian 
spirit, the heart of true charity and all-embracing love, have stopped 
their work completely at the cold command of death. Only a few 
more years and all that he had hoped and striven for would have been 
surely and fully realized. Only a few more years, and Walter B. Hill, 
already one of the great college presidents of America, would have 
been recognized as the greatest of them all. 

Perhaps it were well to accept his loss with the same serene 
tesignation with which he awaited death. Men of his step never flinch 
or murmur. He, who, while living, had 

“Never turned his back but marched breast forward” 
to the fight, must have answered his summons from on high calmly 
and without regret. 

A life spent in the search for truth, and in the performance of 
good; buoyed by knowledge; and sweetened by philosophy; inspired 
by wisdom; and thrilled by genius—such was the life of Walter B. 
Hill, jurist, scholar, educator, Christian. 


* * & 


OUR CHANCELLOR. 
(Editorial in The Red and Black.) 


Our hearts were touched afresh as we listened to the distinguished 
Georgians who were gathered to pay tribute to the memory of our 
beloved and lamented Chancellor. 

As men who had known Chancellor Hill and had been associated 
with him in life at different times related particular phases of his 
career, we could not help but realize what a great and noble man 
had been our Chancellor. It mattered not whether the speaker was 
churchman, statesman, educator or jurist, each seemed to have been 
impressed with Walter B. Hill as an intellectual giant of unblemished 


78 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


character and stainless life, whose moral courage was as strong as 
his heart was pure. 

While each speaker dealt with the life of the Chancellor from 
different viewpoints, we saw “Walter B. Hill, the man,’ as each 
tribute was paid to his memory, growing more distinct and clearer— 
the picture of a whole and complete man who had left the world 
better than he had found it and whose strength 

“Was as the strength of ten, 
Because his heart was pure.’ 

When Chancellor Hill was with us we admired him, we loved 
him, and we listened to his wise and sympathetic counsels as those 
of a great and good man. But it was only when his lips were sealed 
forever in death that we stopped to think how truly great he was. 
When we came back after Christmas, we found his chair vacant, 
and there seemed a void on the campus which could never be filled. 
We sought in vain for his kind and sympathetic face, and we sighed 

—‘for the touch of a vanished hand, 
and the sound of a voice that is still.” 

It was then we realized how dear the Chancellor was to our 
hearts, and the love of the whole student body was fittingly shown as 
we marched with reverent tread to the cemetery last Tuesday and 
made of his grave a mound of flowers. He died without knowing 
how much we loved him. 

While our hearts mourn afresh, let us pray for the guidance of 
the trustees in the selection of a chancellor who is able to carry out 
the plans of Mr. Hill, and when “the dream of a great chancellor” 
has been realized, and Georgia has a greater University along the 
plans which he conceived, it shall stand as a monument to the mem- 
ory of Walter Barnard Hill, who died a martyr to duty for the youth © 
of Georgia. 


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SERVICES AT THE SYNAGOGUE. 


A remarkable tribute to Chancellor Hill was the memorial service 
held in his honor at the Jewish Synagogue in Athens on the night of 
December 29th, of which the Athens Banner has the following 
account : 

The Hebrews of Athens were deeply attached to Chancellor Hill, 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 79 


and held him as one of their best friends. They admired him as the 
head of the great University and as an exemplary citizen. 

Last night at the synagogue the Hebrews of the city held impres- 
sive services in his memory. ‘These services were attended by a large 
number of the members of the Hebrew congregation. 

At the conclusion of the solemn service, Dr. I. Koplowitz, rabbi 
of the congregation, made eloquent remarks in which he spoke of the 
great loss sustained by the state in the death of Chancellor Hill, and 
followed his remarks with a prayer. 

The congregation rose and joined in the prayer ““Kadesh” for the 
repose of the soul of the Chancellor. This prayer is the one used by 
children in praying for the repose of the souls of their fathers, but the 
rabbi said that Chancellor Hill, having been in a sense the father of 
the youth of the state, who were committed to his hands as students, 
it was proper that this prayer be offered at this time. 

The services were a fitting tribute to the memory of the dead 
chancellor. 


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MEMORIAL EXERCISES AT GEORGIA INDUSTRIAL COL- 
LEGE FOR COLORED YOUTHS. 
(From The Savannah Morning News, January Sth, 1906.) 


Memorial exercises for the late Chancellor Walter B. Hill, of the 
University of Georgia, were held in the chapel of the Georgia State 
industrial College yesterday. The chapel was fittingly draped and 
the exercises bespoke the esteem in which the late Chancellor was 
held by the faculty and student body of the institution. 

The exercises were attended by Dr. David C. Barrow, of Athens, 
who since the death of Mr. Hill, has been the acting chancellor, and 
Judge W. R. Hammond, of Atlanta, G. T. Murrell, of Athens, and — 
Col. J. F. Brooks, who are members of the board of trustees. All of 
these gentlemen made remarks appropriate to the occasion. 

The following resolutions, offered by President R. R. Wright 
and Secretary Hy. Pearson, were adopted: 

“Be it resolved, that the demise of Mr. Hill, the late Chancellor 
ot the University of Georgia, we wish to join the family and other 


So WALTER BARNARD HILL 


friends in their expression of grief in what seems to be an irreparable 
loss. 

“That we extend to the bereaved family our sincere sympathy. 

“That in testimony of his great usefulness and our sincere regard, 
a life-size portrait of our lamented Chancellor be hung upon the walls 
of our chapel. 

“That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted to the wife of 
the deceased. 

“That these resolutions be inscribed upon the minutes of this 
institution.” 

The exercises were begun at 4 o’clock, when the school joined 
in singing “Shall We Meet Beyond the River?” President Wright 
spoke in a feeling manner of Mr. Hill as an educator and a Christian. 
He said Chancellor Hill advocated the education of all the people, and 
declared if he had lived his three score and ten years he would have 
attained the distinction of being called Georgia’s greatest educator. 

President Wright said that every one who came under Chan- 
cellor Hill’s influence was benefited. He compared the late Chan- 
cellor’s influence with that which Hawthorne said the great Stone 
Face exerted. He said Mr. Hill was great in all that was good, and 
good in all that was great. 

Dr. Barrow was introduced by President Wright. The acting 
chancellor said in the death of Chancellor Hill he had lost a life-long 
friend. He spoke of Mr. Hill’s excellent qualities, and pronounced 
him one of the few men who had accomplished more than had been 
promised. 

Judge Hammond said that in the demise of Chancellor Hill he 
had sustained a personal loss. He referred to their association in 
college. He characterized the late Chancellor as a gentleman in the 
highest acceptance of the term, one, of whom it could be truly said, 
“There is in him no guile.” He closed his remarks by saying that the 
highest tribute he could pay the Chancellor was to say that he was 
free from duplicity, was of singleness of purpose and in every sense 
a true man. 

Remarks were also made by Mr. Murrell and Col. Brooks. 

The school sang “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” one of Chancellor 
Hill’s favorite hymns, and the closing prayer was offered by the Rev. 
R. H. Thomas, who was formerly superintendent of the agricultural 
department. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL SI 


A NOBLE PERSONALITY. 


Chicago, Ill., April 7, 1906—Professor D. C. Barrow, Acting 
Chancellor, University of Georgia, Athens, Ga., My dear sir:—A long 
absence upon the Pacific coast makes it impossible for me to be present 
in person on the occasion of the services in memory of Chancellor 
Walter Barnard Hill. 


It is a great sorrow to me that I cannot be of the company assem- 
bled to do honor to the memory of that sincere and high-hearted 
gentleman, and to take courage from the contemplation of his fear- 
less and unselfish life of devotion to the welfare of young men and 
‘women. 


The association and fellowship which it was my fortune to hold 
with Chancellor Hill have placed me deeply under obligation to him. 
From him I learned the simple beauty and strength of a calm, just 
life, knowing no fear, counting no sacrifices too costly if thereby the 
public weal could be advanced, or justice and righteousness estab- 
lished. In him I saw civic virtue clad in pure intent, earnest and 
zealous in all good works, and yet saved from sternness and intoler- 
ance by a gentle spirit and a quiet humor that saw life in the large 
‘and loved it, and had infinite patience with it in all of its manifesta- 
tions. 

Chancellor Hill combined the virtues of the old time, and the 
virtues of the new. There dwelt in him the lovableness and the gra- 
ciousness and the charm of a generation that is past, and at the same 
time, the vigor and freedom and resiliency and efficiency of the age 
that is at hand. Beneath the quiet grace of his manner, there existed 
a stoutness of heart, a courage of opinion, a hatred of any form of 
intellectual tyranny or of intellectual timidity, and a willingness to 
suffer, if need be, for opinion’s sake—virtues all tending to co-ordinate 
the graces and powers of his character into a great consistent whole. 
I am sure his biographer will be able to find numerous touching and 
‘beautiful illustrations of these traits of character that will serve as 
examples to the youth to whom his memory belongs, in the struggles 
that await them in the battle of life. 

His services to the University of Georgia, to the education of all 
the people in the states of the South, were great and enduring, and 
form a part of his country’s history which I cannot here properly 
recite. 


82 WALTER BARNARD HILL 

af? | 
My heart and mind dwell upon the man and the noble personality 
whom I knew and loved. His life and his work have strengthened 
every good endeavor in the land where he worked, and those of us 
who knew him are fitter and stronger for the tasks that fall to us by 
reason of that knowledge. 

To the great University to whose upbuilding he gave so com- 
pletely and so successfully his heart and mind, I send the greetings 
and the good will and the faith of the University of Virginia, bound 
together as they are, in the ties of a common endeavor for the better- 
ment of human society. 

May his mantle fall upon shoulders worthy to wear it. 

Very sincerely, EDWIN A. ALDERMAN. 


President of the University of Virginia. 


A TRIBUTE TO CHANCELLOR HILL. 


The address of Mr. R. M. Girardeau, dux of senior class at Em-- 
ory College, delivered on Arbor Day, was another unusual tribute.. 
Of this address the Atlanta Constitution says, in its editorial notice: 

A specimen of ideal, modern oratory—the kind that does not in- 
dulge in florid, pointless embellishments or maudlin metaphor—is the 
address delivered by Mr. R. M. Girardeau, dux of the senior class 
at Emory College, on the 29th instant. Mr. Girardeau’s speech was. 
a tribute to Walter B. Hill, the universally loved chancellor of the 
State University, whose recent death came as a grief and calamity to 
all Georgia. The oration is published elsewhere in today’s Constitu-. 
tion. 

It is indicative of the fraternal feeling existing between the edu- 
cational institutions of Georgia, that this eloquent tribute should have: 
come from a student of a college in no wise connected with the State. 
University. Its clear, ringing phrases, its note of tender melancholy 
and the deep yet exquisite sentiment that breathes throughout its. 
length, are a demonstration of the manner in which the personality 
of Walter B. Hill appealed to the hearts and the minds of the young 
men of Georgia. The inspiration of a life like his was indeed rare 
and fine, to have drawn forth such sincere and intelligent appreciation. 

Mr. Girardeau’s address is one the Constitution may well earn- 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 83 


estly commend to the collegians and young men of this state generally. 
It is valuable not alone as a model of unstilted and genuine eloquence, 
but as evidence of the moral and mental help that lies in a sympathetic 
end conscientious study of the careers of such Georgians as Walter 


ab call, 


WORDS OF APPRECIATION OF CHANCELLOR HILL. 
(From Letters to Mrs. Hill.) 


Dr. H. B. Frissell, Hampton Institute, Vir gima. 

~ “The death of your dear husband brings sorrow to us all. He was 
a truly great man, a noble man. Our Southern Education Board could 
ill afford to lose him. Our meetings will not be the same without him. 
We all through our own feeling of loss realize a little your grief. It is 
a great thing to have known him. Iam truly thankful for his friend- 
ship.” 


Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie, The Outlook, New York. 

“T cannot overstate the regard in which Dr. Hill was held by an 
increasing number of people in this part of the country. We looked 
upon him as one of the true leaders of the higher life of the nation; 
a man of flawless integrity, perfect courage, vigor of mind, abounding 
wit and a most winning personality. He captivated every one by the 
clear thought and contagious humor of a speech he made here last win- 
ter. To me he was the soul of kindness and his liking for some of my 
books was a great help and encouragement. I was in the very act of 
writing to him when I picked up a newspaper and read the sad an- 
nouncement that he had gone on in the journey of life. I was looking 
forward to seeing you both again next summer.. That cannot be; but | 
the valued friendship and the wide influence and the memory of the 
honored and inspiring life remain. He has gone on not only to the 
reward of the just, but to the larger work and the better life.” 


Dr. Albert Shaw, Editor Review of Reviews. 
“T cannot find words that fit my thoughts as I try to express to you 
my sense of the great loss this country sustains in the death of your 


84 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


distinguished husband. Chancellor Hill had won the deepest confidence 
and the greatest admiration from men who knew him, in the North as 
well as in the South. Those of us who were associated with him as 
members of the Southern Education Board will always cherish his 
memory affectionately, and will never cease to feel the great loss that 
educational movements must bear in the absence of his sound judg- 
ment, devoted interest and rare courage.” 


Mr. Walter H. Page, Editor World’s Work. 

“Through and through, to the very bottom and to the very last 
he rang true, as he would have done under all conceivable conditions, 
and as only those men do who can never be surprised by fate, whatever 
sudden turn come. He was himself,—genuine—a very king in the 
small company who are eternally true; and he had the surest mark 
of this great quality—his perpetual cheerfulness. For he seemed some- 
how to know that the right things would win. 

“Our dear country, in whose service genuine men are too few, and 
the great cause that he was so large a part of lose irreparably. 

“T found his friendship an inspiration and I regard it as a great 
distinction—now a sad and blessed memory. It lifted and honored 
every one upon whom he bestowed it.” 


M. dEstournelles de Constant, Chairman of the Committee of 
“Conciliation Internationale,’ Paris. 


*“C’est avec un profond regret que nous apprenons par votre lettre 
du 30 Décembre, la perte que vient de faire 1’ Université de Georgie en 
la personne de son regretté Chancelier M. Walter B. Hill. Cette 
perte sera ressentie, non seulement par les générations d’Américains 
qui avaient recu de M. Hill le germe d’une é€ducation supérieure et 
l’exemple d’une existence si utilement remplie, mais aussi par tous 
- ses concitoyens et parses amis étrangers, particuliérement par les mem- 
bres de la ‘‘Conciliation Internationale.’’ 

Nous conserverons son nom parmi nos membres d’Honneur et 
nous vous prions de recevoir l’expression de nos sentiments de sincére 
condoléance et de les faire agréer a sa famille.’’ 


Dr. J. H. Kirkland, Chancellor Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. 
“This is a blow not only to you and your family, but to the state 
of Georgia, and to the whole South. Chancellor Hill was a man 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 85 


whom I esteemed and honored, and whose friendship I prized exceed- 
ingly. You have the great consolation that his life was well spent 
and that his memory will abide as an inspiration and a precious herit- 
age forever.” 


Dr. George H. Denny, President of Washington and Lee University. 

“Chancellor Hill belonged to the nation. He was a man of 
national spirit and temper. I regarded him as easily one of the most 
able and valuable of all the leaders in the new, progressive movements 
in Southern education. His loss cannot be estimated.” 


President Henry N. Snyder, Wofford College, Spartanburg, S. C. 

“Every time I was thrown with Chancellor Hill he impressed me 
more and more with his essential worth. He always seemed to me a 
simple-hearted, high-minded, clean-handed Southern gentleman, disin- 
terestedly devoted to the upbuilding of his state through the services of 
the great trust committed to him. I have been counting him among 
the really potent forces in the re-construction of this Southern country.” 


Dr. Richard T. Ely, University of Wisconsin. 

“T hasten to express to you and your children my sincere and 
heartfelt sympathy at this time. I have thought very often of you 
and the happy family circle I learned to know and value very highly 
only a few short weeks ago. I shall always be glad that I had the 
opportunity to become so well acquainted with Chancellor Hill, for 
it will always be a help to me to remember his quiet dignity, his sin- 
cerity and the high aims for which he toiled so patiently and so dili- 
gently. He has done a great work for his state, for the South, and 
for the entire country, and its effect will be enduring.” 


Dr. Charles H. Herty, Professor of Chemistry, University of North 
Carolina. 
“And, oh, how I loved him. Loved him from the first day I saw 
him. Loved him for his purity, for his strength, for his singleness of 
heart, for his sweet sympathy.” 


Mr. John F. Bonnell, Professor of Physics, Emory College. 
“T have lost a friend whom I loved. We grew up together in 


86 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Macon, as Walter and John, and were so even till now. He was one 
for whose character and course I had always nothing but admiration. 
The church, the state and society are richer by his work and influence.” 


Mr. Lawton B. Evans, Superintendent of Schools, Augusta, Ga. 

“Like the state and country we are overwhelmed by the sad 
calamity and feel the almost irreparable loss to the cause of education 
in the South. He was a man entirely beloved by all who knew him, - 
universally admired for his great ability, courage and gentleness. 
We depended so wholly on his judgment and sanity in matters pro- 
fessional that we cannot now really understand how greatly he will 
be missed in the future.” 


Prof. J. R. Mosley, Macon, Ga. 

“T loved Mr. Hill as I loved and love few other men. He is the 
highest type of a public man Georgia has given to the world during 
the latter half of the nineteenth century. I never knew him to do or 
say anything that was not fine enough for heavenly words and 
deeds; and I cannot say so much of any other man that I have known 
so well.” 


Mr. Robert C. Ogden, President of Southern Education Board, New 

York. 

“Without the ability to bring you comfort in this hour of trial, I 
hesitate to intrude upon your attention. And yet, in common with 
many others, I feel that in a very real way I have a share in the 
loss sustained by you and your family, the University of Georgia, the 
South and the nation in the death of Chancellor Hill. 

“To recite the many points at which he commanded the respect 
of all to whom he was known would be quite superfluous. Never- 
theless, | must, at least, tell you how great was the benediction of his 
life to the group of men in which it has been my privilege to be asso- 
ciated with him. To us he was prophet, teacher, brother. With clear 
vision, lofty aim, persistent purpose, inspired by the calm judgment 
born of faith in the Eternal, he revealed a character that commanded 
deepest respect and true affection. His place in the world was so 
much his own creation that it will not be filled by another, but his in- 
fluence will broaden and deepen in the long future through other 
lives that he has strengthened and exalted.” 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 87 


Rev. George G. N. MacDonell, Methodist Minister, Statesboro, Ga. 
Mr. Hill’s first pastor after he left college. 


“He was one of the men who could not be ‘spoiled’ looking at it 
from a human standpoint, but God our Father knows what is best for 
us all; and has declared that “all things work together for good to them 
that love God.” May you be comforted by His promises, and sustained 
by His grace. Frederick W. Robertson, of Brighton, said of Jesus, 
that “He united in His person both the masculine and feminine poles 
of humanity,’ and I have often thought that Brother Hill in this re- 
spect was more like his Divine Master than any man I have ever 
known.” 


Rev. Frederick F. Reese, D. D., Rector Christ Church, Nashville, Tenn. 

“We pray in one of our collects, thanking God for our “creation 
and preservation.” Sometimes, I fear our burdens and intellectual 
difficulties take the spring and enthusiasm out of our thankfulness. 
Life does not always seem to be such a joy as to call forth spontaneous 
and abundant utterances of thankfulness for our very existence. But I 
am sure that Mr. Hill must have felt it, for he never could have lived 
and worked as he did except under the inspiration of the joy of service 
and self-sacrifice. And what a glorious thing it is to have lived and left 
hehind here, while he still rejoices in life beyond, such a fragrant and 
inspiring memory.” | 


O. G. Villard, Editor New York Evening Post. 

I write merely to add that I consider his loss a blow to the whole 
country, which cannot be repaired. He was to my mind, an ideal 
Southerner and American. 


Dr. R. J. Willingham, Corresponding Secretary Baptist Foreign — 

Missionary Board. 

“T first met Walter B. Hill over thirty-seven years ago in the 
University of Georgia, when we were school boys together. J learned 
then to admire him very much, and through the years my admiration 
and esteem for him has continually grown. While he was a strong 
lawyer and a fine Chancellor, and a great man in many ways, yet he 
stood highest in my esteem because of his ardent love for what was 
true and right. From a boy he always loved to stand for what was 


88 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


true and right. In considering any question Walter B. Hill could be 
counted on to stand for that which was pure and good and true. He 
was one of the noblest specimens of Christian manhood that I have 
ever known. I loved him and I esteemed his friendship.” 


Rev. W. W. Pinson, Pastor Broadway M. E. Church, South, Louts- 
ville, Ky.; a former pastor in Macon, Ga. 

“T rejoice in the assurance that he was ready, and that he left 
such a heritage of noble memories to you and his children and to a 
great host of friends, friends who were won and held not by art or 
trick of popularity, but by those qualities that command the confidence 
and esteem of men. I think of him as one of God’s noblemen, kindly, 
unselfishly, meekly, living that highest and kingliest life, the Christian 
life—kingly with the crowning that death cannot dim and the author- 
ity the grave cannot break.” 


Dr. J. D. Hammond, Corresponding Secretary Board of Education, 

M. E. Church, South, Nashville, Tenn. 

“He and I were classmates and thrown together more or less 
intimately during after years. I learned to love him in college, and 
all my later knowledge of him only intensified my feeling for him and 
increased my admiration of his many noble qualities. I knew of his 
sickness, but could not believe it would end as it has done. We 
prayed for his recovery in our family circle. I did not feel that he 
could be spared. There is no man in Georgia who can fill his place.” 


Mr. R. P. Brooks, Rhodes Scholar, Oxford, England. 

“T find myself entirely unable to realize that such a disaster has 
befallen the state, the University, and, above all, the family. Without 
having recovered from the first shock, I must write you a few lines 
to express my great sorrow; for I do not believe that any one outside 
the immediate family has so deep a sense of bereavement as I feel. 

“Ever since I first entered the University, Mr. Hill has been my 
ideal of a great and noble gentleman. He represented what is best in 
American traditions of culture. No one could be so closely associated 
with Mr. Hill as I was without catching some of the lofty spirit which 
characterized his every act; and the fine example he afforded of the 
ideal citizen and man I shall ever keep before me for emulation. While 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 89 


I can never hope to attain to his spiritual, mental, and moral plane, 
I shall at least be able to say: “What I aspired to be and was not 
comforts me.’ ” 


“Last night we had nature in her greatest perfection and beauty— 
a cloudless sky, a great full moon, not a breath of air. I walked out 
into the sleeping streets at midnight. How perfect the serenity, how 
majestic the calm of the night. I was reminded of the Chancellor’s 
most striking characteristic,—his calmness and gentleness under all 
circumstances. I used to marvel at his patience. His consistent for- 
bearance and consideration alone made possible the double position 
T occupied of secretary and student. I can no more forget Mr. Hill’s 
many kindnesses to me than I can express my grief for his untimely 
death or my sympathy for you and the other members of the family.” 


Mr. Lucien P. Goodrich, Aitorney-at-Law, Griffin, Ga., former 
student. 


“When I picked up the Atlanta Constitution of yesterday morn- 
ing, I was delighted to recognize the features of my beloved friend, 
Chancellor Hill. And I cannot describe the sorrow and anxiety which 
came over me when I read the sad news of his illness. I am sure 
that from that time until the last bulletin appeared this morning, his 
calm, noble, gentle face was never entirely absent from my thoughts. 


Tennyson speaks somewhere of things ‘dear as remembered 
kisses after death,’ but dearer than these to me are remembered acts 
of kindness, done with such delicacy as to permit of no outward ex- 
pression of gratitude, and the memory of the deed mingled with a 
kind reproach to the receiver that perhaps his appreciation was never 
fully known or understood. The last letter I received from Chan- 
cellor Hill commended me for my loyalty to the University, and I 
remember how I was tempted to tell him in words that my love for 
him was as powerful a motive as my loyalty to the institution. 

“Any words of mine would seem meaningless and insipid when 
compared to the felt grandeur and nobility of his character. I can 
only wish that the joy and contentment which he must feel to hear 
the greeting “well done, good and faithful servant,’ may descend 
upon you; and that your sorrow may give place to thanksgiving for 
that he lived and wrought in the paths of righteousness, and, depart- 
ing, left an influence which shall not perish from the earth.” 


90 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


Rev. L. S. Clark, A. M., Principal Knox Institute, Colored, Athens, Ga. 

“T received this morning the sad intelligence of the death of your 
noble and beloved husband, Chancellor W. B. Hill. Chancellor Hill 
was a friend to me and to my race. In this time of your bereave- 
ment and grief, I beg to assure you that you have my sympathy and 
prayers.” 


Telegram From Booker T. Washington. 
Tuskeegee, ‘Ala., December 29th, 1905. 
Acting Chancellor, University of Georgia, 
Athens, Ga. 

I want to express, for my ~ace, this institution, and myself, the 
very deep regret that we feel on account of the death of Chancellor 
Hill. Few men, anywhere in the country, were more deeply interested 
in our welfare, and none were more wise and courageous in doing and 
saying that which would help forward the interest of both races. Not 
only the negro but the whole South has lost a sincere and wise friend, 
whose place it will be very difficult to fill. | 

(Signed) BOOKER. T. WASHINGTON. 


’ * + 
RESOLUTIONS OF THE NEW YORK ALUMNI. 


At a special meeting of the New York Alumni Association of the 
University of Georgia, the following preamble and resolution, offered 
by Mr. Marion J. Verdery, who was a classmate of Chancellor Hill, was 
unanimously adopted: 

Whereas, The New York Alumni Association of the University 
of Georgia has received the sorrowful tidings of the death of Chan- 
cellor Walter B. Hill, and is profoundly shocked and distressed by the 
sad intelligence, 

Therefore, Be it Resolved, That the following memorial in tribute 
to his memory be inscribed in our minute book, and that a copy be 
sent to his grief stricken family with assurances of our sincerest sym- 
pathy. 

He was a man of such unerring sense of right and wrong that 
his life was the incarnation of truth, virtue and charity. His mind was 
so full of exalted thought that he reasoned over the heads of common 
men and judged with extraordinary wisdom. He detected error in its 


WALTER BARNARD HILL OI 


most secret hiding place and dragged it into the light of condemnation. 
His soul was illumined by the unflickering lamp of Christian faith, and 
his heart was as pure as the fountain of love. His usefulness was as 
wide as the range of his influence, and his ambitions were as unselfish 
as the sacrifices of heroism. 

He walked in the fear and admonition of God and lived in the 
glory of duty well done. 

In politics he was pure, in business he was fair, and in religion he 
was sincere. His aims and purposes were the highest, his work and 
methods the noblest and all his achievements excellent and honorable. 

The world is better for his living in it. His example was worthy 
of unquestioning emulation. His conduct in all things was determined 
by his love of truth, his devotion to justice, and his passion for the 
well-being of mankind. 

In his life the University of Georgia had a great power for good, 
and by his death sustains irreparable loss. 


(Signed) HARMON SMITH, M. D., President. . 
LEONARD SNIDER, Secretary. | 
eo % 


RESOLUTIONS OF DIRECTORS OF THE SOUTHERN 
MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY. 


On the morning of December 28th, 1905, in the dark hour which 
precedes the dawn, Walter Barnard Hill closed his gentle eyes in death. 
The oncoming day broke drear and desolate upon the earth. The 
sleeping city woke with troubled heart to learn that in the night the 
hope of yesterday was crushed, and prayers “were turned to ashes on 
the lip.” } 
- The life of Chancellor Hill was so rare, so gentle and so fine, that 
a great nation spoke his name with pride. His influence for good. 
spread far beyond his native state, and his death is deplored as a 
national loss. 

His own people placed upon him the responsibility of their high- 
est trust, when he was called to guide the youth of Georgia as the 
head of the State University ; while in the broader fields of educational 
endeavor and philanthropic work he was brought into the councils of 
the country’s foremost men. 


Q2 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


We who shared with him the closer walk of daily life, who felt 
more intimately the warmth of his heart, and knew the value of his 
splendid quality, now echo back in answering faith the thought of him 
who loved hi min beautiful friendship: “His was a soul so pure, so 
fine, that God has called him to a nobler work beyond the stars.” 

At the meeting today of the Directors of the Southern Mutual In- 
surance Company, the vacant chair of Walter B. Hill bears silent 
testimony to the loss which has fallen upon this corporation. 

Blessed with an intellect of unusual force and power, trained and 
skilled in legal knowledge; cultured and refined, with a high sense of 


Civic justice; his heart filled with a broad humanity, and his life radiant 
with Christian virtue, he was a safe and trusted counsellor in our 
deliberations. 

Your committee recommends that this insufficient tribute be spread 
upon the records of the Company ; that a page be set apart inscribed to 
the memory of Director Walter B. Hill, and that a copy be furnished 
by the Secretary to the members of the family. 

(Signed) 
EDWARD R. HODGSON, 
ALEXANDER S. ERWIN, 
JAMES WHITE, 
Committee. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 93 


UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PLANS FOR 
THE FUTURE. 


A few months after the death of Chancellor Hill, a handsome 
booklet was published at the instance of Mr. George Foster Peabody, 
entitled “The Vision of a Great Chancellor,’ and, as it gives in de- 
tail the wise plans the Chancellor had made for the development of 
the University, it is herewith reproduced. 


INTRODUCTION. 


The administration of Dr. Walter B. Hill as chancellor of the 
University of Georgia covered less than seven years. In that time 
the progress of the institution was greater than during any similar 
period in its history. The number of students was doubled and the 
equipment splendidly increased; in fact more new buildings were 
erected during his term than in the forty years preceding it. 

His death on December 28 last was a loss to the institution that 
is almost incalculable, for he had to leave unfinished a plan for the 
development of the University which would have been more speedily 
executed had he lived to direct the great work to completion. | 

Fortunately his hopes for the future development of the Uni- 
versity were put into definite plans before his death. He laid the 
foundation on broad lines, depending upon the wealth and patriotism 
of a great state to furnish the funds necessary to build the institution 
from year to year commensurate with the needs of the people. He 
looked farther ahead than a few years. The institution over which 
he presided has already been serving the state in the noblest and 
most useful way possible for more than a hundred years, and the 
Chancellor had the wisdom to see that Georgia’s great s'rides forward 
during the past few years were likely to continue from year to year, 
with such progress that the present equipment of the University 
would be rapidly outgrown. He therefore devoted himself to the 
problem of working out a careful and logical plan for enlarging the 
University which could be generally followei for many years, with 
such changes as might seem advisable from time to time under chang- 
ing conditions. 

One line of development for the University which Chancellor 

till considered of great importance was the enlargement of the work 
in the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. He realized that 


04 WALTER BARNARD HILL, 


Georgia was primarily an agricultural state, with comparatively no 
great amount of mineral wealth. He believed firmly with Dean 
Swift that the man who makes two blades of grass grow where but 
one grew before is a public benefactor, and with the idea that farm- 
ing conditions in Georgia could be immeasurably improved he wished 
the University to lead the way in educating the sons of farmers to 
more scientific methods in agriculture. 

Dr. Hill had many earnest supporters in his plans to make the 
University training bring practical results for the uplift of the masses 
of farmers throughout the state. The alumni of the institution are 
hearty in their sympathy and approval. A generous friend, Mr. 
George Foster Peabody, was so deeply interested that he purchased 
and gave to the University 399 acres of land just south of the old 
campus grounds, on which the experimental and practical work in 
the College of Agriculture is to be conducted. The alumni, at the 
commencement in June, 1905, voted to lend to three of their members, 
acting as trustees, the Alumni Fund of $40,000, to purchase additional 
property to round out the tract and connect the farm land up to the 
old campus proper. Citizens of Athens have subscribed $14,000 to- 
ward purchasing this land, and alumni throughout the state have con- 
tributed. -The total cost of the additional land was between $90,000 
and $100,000. Less than half of this amount is still to be raised be- 
fore the land which has already been acquired will be paid for in full. 

In order that the farm lands might be connected with the old 
campus by driveways with easy grades, and a comprehensive plan 
made for the development of the University as a whole, Mr. Peabody 
agreed personally to defray the expense of the services of a landscape 
engineer to survey and lay out the entire property. Mr. Chas. W. 
Leavitt, Jr., of New York, a man who stands among the leaders of 
his profession, was employed for this work. He made several trips 
to Athens and had a number of conferences with Chancellor Hill, who 
explained in detail his ideas for the greater University. Mr. Leavitt 
has embodied these ideas in complete drawings of large size. 


DESCRIPTION OF THE PLANS. 
By Chas. W. Leavitt, Jr. 
In the summer of 1905 I was commissioned by a friend of the 
University of Georgia, who had just returned from a conference with 
the trustees and Chancellor and active representative of the Alumni 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 95 


Association, to make a trip to Athens, Ga., and look over the prop- 
erty of the University, with a view to its being developed on broad 
lines, 

I went to Athens in July and looked carefully over the grounds 
with Chancellor Hill and several of the faculty and alumni. After 
careful consideration, a plan of procedure was settled upon infor- 
mally by us, to be submitted to the friend who commissioned me, upon 
my return to New York. 

The particulars agreed upon between Chancellor Hill and the 
members of the faculty were heartily endorsed, and the work was 
authorized. 

We began the work August 1. The survey was made by local 
engineers under the direction of one of my assistants, assisted by 
Professor C. M. Strahan, and was completed in October. I then drew 
the general plan, which was fully discussed by those with whom I was 
in conference in the absence of Chancellor Hill in Europe, whose re- 
turn was awaited before final designs were made. 

It was arranged that the plan should be sent to Athens for fur- 
ther consideration. This was done, and under date of November 22, 
I received the following letter from the Chancellor: 

“My dear Mr. Leavitt: 

“When I was in your office on my return from Europe I remem- 
ber your saying that questions in regard to the size of future build- 
ings—questions such as the amount of space needed for chemical and 
biological laboratories—were questions for educational experts, and 
it occurred to me that perhaps on my return here I might consult the 
members of the faculty and be able to give you some helpful sug- 
gestions for the bird’s eye picture which I understand is in contem- 
plation. It seems to me, however, after some conference, that it is not 
practicable at the present to go into details of this kind. The ques- 
tion of the size of the buildings would depend on the period at which 
they may be located on the campus, the number of students at that 
time, etc, etc. So many contingencies enter into such a problem that 
it seems to me it will be necessary to go ahead and represent the build- 
ings without a minute consideration of the points to which you refer. 

“The more I have thought about your suggestions the more they 
liave seemed comprehensive, adequate, and satisfactory. You have 
already had some conference with Professor Strahan, who is the 


96 WALTER BARNARD HILL 

member of our faculty best qualified to advise with you as to the fu- 
ture use of the enlarged campus. It seems to me, then, that it would 
be better for the pictorial scheme if it should be hereafter presented 
as embodying your views as landscape engineer rather than a blend- 
ing of your views with other suggestions. 

“After thinking over your suggestions during the time I have 
had to do so, I am the more satisfied that there is nothing for me to 
say except, perhaps, that you might add to the buildings, one for a 
dental college, in the professional group, one for a school of com- 
merce, in the academic group, and also a building to be called the 
Alumni Memorial Hall, which the state would be asked to erect as 
a memorial to distinguished alumni of the University and in recogni- 
tion also of the relatively large financial aid which the alumni are 
giving to the institution. 

“T have had a talk today with City Engineer J. W. Barnett in 
regard to the road through the old cemetery. He is quite ready to 
take that matter up, although execution of the plan may be delayed 
by consideration necessary to be given to the fact that there are 
persons still residing here whose ancestors are still interred in the 
old cemetery. We must, of course, avoid any seeming indifference 
to the sentiments of the living and to respect for the dead. 

“Yours very truly, 
(Signed) “Water B. Hii, 
“Chancellor.” 
To which I replied as follows: 
“My dear Chancellor Hill: 

“T have today your letter under date of November 22. 

“Mr. Peabody has been with me this afternoon and has definitely 
decided to go on with the bird’s eye perspective and plans, and I am 
proceeding accordingly. 

“T am sending you, under separate cover, a white print of the 
topography with the layout of roads and proposed buildings, which 
I will be glad to have you look over together with your faculty and 
return same to me with your comments. 

“Subsequently, I will send you a regular plan without the con- 
fusion of the topography and also the perspective. 

“Thanking you for your very pleasant letter and kind sugges- 
tions, I am, “Yours very truly, 

(Signed) “Cuas. W. Leavirt, Jr.” 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 97 


Chancellor Hill again wrote me on November 29 and December 
i2, as follows: 

“Dear Sir: Yours of the 25th inst. received. I have also heard 

rom Mr. Peabody, and I am glad to know that both you and he ap- 
prove going forward on the lines indicated in your letter. The white 
print has not yet come to hand, but as soon as it arrives will be exam- 
ined and I will be glad to write you. 
“Yours very truly, 
(Signed) “Water B. Hitt. 

“Chancellor.” 
“My dear Mr. Leavitt: 

“T have just received the map by express and as I am leaving the 
city only have time to say now, with emphasis, that I am delighted. 
I hope to be in New York on the 19th and see you while there. 

“Yours very truly, 
(Signed) “Water B. Hitz, 
“Chancellor.” 

Unfortunately his trip to New York was prevented by his illness 
and subsequent death. We all felt, however, that his last letter was a 
sufficient approval by him of what we had been doing, and I was 
therefore instructed to complete the plan and perspective. 

I would describe the completed plan as follows: 

Academic Group—The location of the present historic entrance 
to the old campus would be kept, with an additional entrance on 
Groad street to the east; the gateways to be rebuilt in masonry and 
iron, with the emblem of Georgia as a motive. From these two en- 
trances parallel driveways would be constructed the entire length of 
the old campus, with approaches to the buildings of the academic 
group, terminating in a fore-court ih front of the chapel, which would 
be constructed upon an elevated terrace on the site of the residence 
of the late Chancellor Hill. This Chapel would be the pivot of the 
entire University and should stand for all that is good. The late 
Chancellor felt that one’s ideas could properly radiate from this point. 

Flanking the Chapel on either side would be buildings for chem- 
istry and biology, the former approximately in the location of Profes- 
sor Patterson’s residence. Also two other buildings, one located near 
the site of the present Agricultural Hall, which might be used for 
history and economics, and opposite to it, just south of the old Col- 
lege building, would be a structure for m.thematics. On the site of 


as WALTER BARNARD HILL 

the new College building would be the law school, it being the inten- 
tion to keep the last three buildings near the Library which will be 
used for reference. 

Post Graduate S‘chool—Contained within the above mentioned 
academic group would be a building for a Post Graduate School, lo- 
cated to the left of the entrance to balance the present Academic Build- 
ing, which is on the right. The present Terrell Hall would be used 
in connection with this Post Graduate School. 

I understand that it is thought desirable by many to provide 
quarters for the state departments of health, agriculture, entomology, 
chemistry, and geology, inasmuch as these departments are primarily 
educational, and in many states are made an integral part of the state 
university. So over-crowded are the present quarters of these de- 
partments in the state capitol that it will soon be necessary to build 
an annex to that building unless this plan be adopted. In that case 
it is proposed to use the present Academic Building, Moore Building, 
and LeConte Hall, and to erect a new building in the western corner 
of the property at the intersection of Broad and Lumpkin streets. 
There would still be space left to add to both the post graduate group 
and the state department Si ae in the future should more room be 
found necessary. 

Thus one standing near the main entrance opposite College 
avenue would look directly at the Chapel through a mall lined on 
either side by dignified educational buildings—an inspiration and wel- 
come to the student and visitor. 

The College for Women—Off to the north of the Chapel and on 
the site of the old cemetery would be the most suitable location for 
the college for women, which the University will doubtless develop 
in the near future. These buildings should be arranged in the form 
of a quadrangle with dormitories on either side of the group. 

The present line of Jackson street should be changed to pass to 
the north of this group, which will give it a more graceful line and 
easy grade to the cemetery and leave the University grounds un- 
broken. This will also throw into the grounds the two small blocks 
of land lying between the old cemetery and the Lucas hill and will 
extend the ground on the Lucas hill to the north, making the layout 
much more symmetrical and comprehensive. 

Faculty—On the west of the new Chapel would be the Chancel- 


WALTER BARNARD HILL 99 


lor’s residence and on the adjacent southwest slope the cottages of 
the faculty. | 

Engineering Group—Looking off to the south from the Chapel 
one would see the engineering group arranged on the Lucas hill in 
imitation of the Acropolis at Athens, Greece. Approaching from 
the Chapel by direct walk or the circular driveways following the 
contour of the hill one would pass in entering this group between a 
building for physics on. the right and one for research on the left. 
Directly in front will rise the Civil Engineering Building dominating 
the group, on the east end the Electrical Engineering Building, and 
on the west and overlooking the athletic fields, with large Gymnasium 
suitable also for drill room, would be the Young Men’s Christian As- 
sociation Building, built on the side of the hill in the general form of 
the Erechtheum at Athens. 

Driveways would pass around the engineering group on the slope 
of the hill and meet in a point to the east, from whence a viaduct is 
designed to cross the Tanyard Branch on a direct line with the agri- 
cultural group on Compton Hill. A direct path is proposed from the 
engineering group to this viaduct which would then connect directly 
with the agricultural group by ramps. 

There would also be a driveway approach by a more circuitous 
route and easy grades through the forestry preserve. This would 
bring the agricultural group in close touch with the rest of the Uni- 
versity. 

The Agricultural Group would be dominated by a large build- 
ing to contain departments of agronomy, horticulture, animal hus- 
bandry, and a large auditorium and museum. (Funds for the con- 
struction of this main building, with suitable greenhouses, barns, etc., 
are provided for in the “Conner Bill,’ which was introduced at the 
last session of the Legislature, and has been favorably passed upon 
by the appropriations committee of the House of Representatives. It 
is believed that this bill will become a law at the June session. This 
will emphasize Georgia’s appreciation of the fact that her great source 
of wealth is agriculture, and stamp her seal of approval upon work 
being done for advancing agricultural education along modern scien- 
tific lines as rapidly as possible). 

Forestry Building—To the south and west would be the Forestry 
Building and greenhouse, being in close proximity to the forest sec- 
tion, which is now heavily wooded and affords ample room for study. 


100 WALTER BARNARD HILL 


On the east would be the building for dairy experiments in butter, 
cheese, and other products, with necessary sheds for experiments 
with animals. 

Dairy Farm—On the Benton Branch would be the dairy farm 
on which would be located a large cow barn with silos, a dairyman’s 
house, a building for butter and milk, and buildings for the help. 

Pig Barns—Further down the Benton Branch, near the point 
where it enters the Oconee River, would be the pig barns, smoke 
house, slaughter house, and houses for swine-herd, and for help. 

Sheep Barn—On the Carlton Branch, near its crossing under 
the railroad, would be the sheep barn and shepherd’s house. It is the 
intention to use the sharp side hills and poor land along these branches 
for pasture for cows, pigs, and sheep. This would leave the better 
land along the river and the Carlton farm free for cultivation of field 
crops. Near the Carlton farm house would be ‘constructed large barns 
for the storage of crops and the agricultural implements. The pres- ” 
ent farm house would be used by the farm superintendent. 

It is thought that the dairy, pig, sheep, and other farm depart- 
ments would be self-supporting. 

The State Experiment Station now situated near Griffin, Ga., 
could be located on the commanding hill just southeast of the dairy 
farm. It would consist of the executive office, residence for four 
state officials, and two barns for storage of experimental materials. 
Sufficient land can be laid off at this point for the use of the state in 
its experiments, without interfering with the other arrangements. 
{Such location would afford peculiar advantages to the College of 
Agriculture, and the contact of the officers of the station with the 
teaching force in this important branch of study ought to result in 
admirable progress in practical methods for the students of this de- 
partment). 

Experimental Fruits—On the high land to the east and south 
of Lumpkin street it is proposed to plant the experimental fruits, and 
to arrange them in such shape that they may be visible to persons pass- 
ing through Lumpkin street and may also be easy of access from the 
agricultural group. There is at present on a part of this plateau a 
splendid orchard containing trees about five years old. 

The buildings now on Lumpkin street owned by the University 
would undoubtedly be ample for the present to house the fruit grow- 
ers who will carry on this work. 


WALTER BARNARD HILL Io! 


The Dormitories for students would be located near Lumpkin 
street on account of the facilities of the proposed trolley line which 
will undoubtedly be built there. It also would be possible for the 
men to easily pass from such dormitories into the field and class 
rooms without unnecessary travel. 

Athletic Field—The hollow along the Tanyard Branch seems 
to afford facilities for the athletic fields; beginning, for instance, at 
ijumpkin street for the baseball field, and just east of this the foot- 
ball field, with stands for spectators on the south side so they will face 
away from the sun. To the east of this could be the swimming pool, 
bowling greens, and tennis courts. 

The Armory and Parade Grounds have been located southwest 
of the agricultural building plain. 

It is intended that the present Denmark Dining-hall and the 
Candler Hall remain where they are and the athletic and military fields 
now in use be kept for games, exercise, etc. 

Furthermore many of the dwelling houses now on the grounds. 
which would of necessity have to be moved, could be transferred to 
the farming district and used for help and possibly as residences for 
students. 

Admiumistrative Building—When the new Chapel is finished the 
old Chapel might be used as an administrative building by making 
proper alterations. This would preserve this historic building and 
put it to a practical use. 

The Dental College would be located near Wray and Lumpkin 
streets and would form part of quadrangle about the present athletic 
field. 

The School of Commerce would be at the east end of the present 
athletic field. 

{ submit with this report the topographical plan from which I 
have made all my calculations and studies; the general plan, showing | 
buildings, location of roads, paths, planting, etc.; and the perspective, 
which gives one an idea of the completed University. 

The construction, which would probably cover a period of many 
years, should follow carefully in accordance with the plans. Thus 
eventually the comprehensive scheme may be realized, which I trust 
will prove beautiful as well as practical. Respectfully, 

Cuas. W. Leavirt, Jr. 
New York, March 22, 1906. 


tn eyes wep 


eecaseen, 


SSE 


1 Entrance Campus 
*2 Academic Building 
3 Medical Schuol 
*4 Demosthenian Hall 
"5 Phi Kappa House 
*6 Old Chapel 
*7 Terrell Hall 
8 Law School 
*9 Peabody Library 
10 Mathematics 
11 History and Economics 
"12 Residetice 
13 Biology 
14 Chemistry 
15 Chapel 
16 Women’s Campus 
17 Mathematics 
18 History 
19 Dormitory 
20 Chemistry and Physics 
21 Dormitory 
#22 Moore Building 
2% State Dept. of Agriculture 
#24 Le Conte Hall 
*25 Candler Hal} 
26 Dental School 


UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA 


ATHENS, GA. 


CHas W Leavirrie 
. ENGINCER 


SCoe 


LEGEND 


Dormitory 

’ Denmark Hall 
Dormitory 

Couage 

Senool of Commerce 
Engineeting Quadrangle 
Physics 

Research 

Y. M. ©. A. Gymnasium 
Electrical Engineering 
37 Clvi) Engineering 

38 Athletic Field 

$9 Grand Stand 

40 Swimming Pool 

41 Bath House 

42 Bowling Green 

° Tennis Courts 

44 Viaduct 

45 Ramped Approach 

46 Agricultural Hall 

47 Forestry 

48 Greenhouse 

49 Dairy 

50 Cow Bafn 

51 Armory 

52 Parade 


*Present Buildings 


AnmoT STNYC 


53 Dormitory 
54 Forest Reservation 
, Quarters. for Help 
-56 Cow Barn 

57 Quarters for Help 

58 Dairyman'’s House 

59 Creamery BL FN 
60 Milk Dairy 

61 Piggery 

2 Cold Storage 

3 Slaughter House 

fi4 Smoke House 

$5 Quarters for Help, 

66 Swineherd's House 

67 Experimental Station, 
68 Barn : 

#9 Cultivated Flelds 

70 Cottage 

71 Pasture 

72 Sheep Barn 

78 Shepherd’s House 

74 Farm Barn © 

*75 Quarters tor Help 
*76 Horticultural Work Shop 
77 Experimental Grounds — 
78 Experimental Orchards 


UNIVERSITY OF GEORG!IA—PERSPECTIVE. 


ERRATA. 


-On page 15, line 11, the figures $118,000 should read 
$200,300. On line 13 ‘“‘nearly three times’’ should read 
‘‘nearly twice.’’ 


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